Russian Orthodox Doc Declares 'Holy War' in Ukraine
By Sandy Fitzgerald | Friday, 29 March 2024
The Russian Orthodox Church this week approved a document declaring its country's self-described "special military operation" against Ukraine as a "holy war" being waged to protect Russia's "spiritual space."
The declaration was made in a document approved during a gathering of the World Russian People's Council, which brought religious, cultural, and political figures together at the Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, reports Newsweek.
"From a spiritual and moral point of view, the special military operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its people, are defending the single spiritual space of Holy Russia," said the document, released under the heading of "special military operation," the Kremlin's official term for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The document added that the war was waged to protect "the world from the onslaught of globalism and the victory of the West, which has fallen into Satanism," and declared that once the war is over, "the entire territory of modern Ukraine should enter the zone of Russia's exclusive influence."
"The possibility of the existence of a Russophobic political regime hostile to Russia and its people on this territory, as well as a political regime controlled from an external center hostile to Russia, should be completely excluded," the declaration said.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who heads the Russian Orthodox Church and the World Russian People's Council, is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In February 2022, when the invasion of Ukraine began, Kirill declared that Ukraine and Belarus remain part of "Russian lands" and condemned Ukrainians fighting back against the invasion as "forces of evil." He also presented the war as Russia's battle for Christianity's future.
Other representatives in the Orthodox faith, however, including the U.S.-based Orthodox Public Affairs Committee (OPAC) have condemned the war and after the invasion of Ukraine began, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) cut its ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, told Newsweek earlier this month that in places where Russia has arrived in Ukraine, it has worked to "exterminate all other religions besides the well-controlled and weaponized Russian Orthodox Church."
Meanwhile, the Institute for Religious Freedom, based in Kyiv, said last year that Russia's military has destroyed, damaged, or looted almost 500 religious buildings, with the numbers continuing to climb.
Shevchuk said it is a challenge for his church not to become militant or "fall to the same temptation the Russian Orthodox Church fell into and become an instrument of hatred."
"Russia sucks." ---- Me, US Army (retired) 12B & 51B
Russian Admiral said, after the Moskva sank, "we have the world's worst navy but we aren't as bad as our army".
