Faced with difficulties, the Kremlin tries to give a religious character to the war in Ukraine
For several weeks, according to the analysis of Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Russian authorities have been trying to give a religious and sacred dimension to their offensive against Ukraine. Vladimir Putin thus affirmed, during his New Year greetings, that the “moral correctness” was on the side of Moscow.
This claim illustrates the will of the authorities to iron out the doubts of part of the population thrown off balance by the entry of Russian troops into a country where the majority of believers are, as in Russia, Orthodox Christians.
As Moscow suffered several military setbacks, religious rhetoric gained increasing momentum from the fall, with senior officials and state media portraying the intervention as a ” Holy war “ against a West portrayed as decadent. The powerful leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has also expressed his support for the offensive.
The intertwining of the religious and the military is also manifested by the sending of dozens of priests to the front to support the soldiers. Military priest Sviatoslav Tchourkanov explains to AFP that these missions are intended to prevent soldiers from “lose their soul (…)even if the situation pushes them to it”.
Sign of the importance of these monks, Mr. Putin awarded in November the title of “Hero of the Russian Federation”, the highest honor in the country, to an Orthodox priest killed in the combat zone, Mikhail Vasiliev.
But this involvement of the Church in the conflict is not unanimous. “This rhetoric of “holy war” comes straight from the Middle Ages”said Andrei Kordotchkine, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church stationed in Madrid, in an interview with AFP. “It is exactly this term that was used by Pope Urban II when he blessed the crusade [lancée en 1096]promising the crusaders that their sins would be forgiven”, he explains. ” But (…) a war, which is a form of murder, cannot have any spiritual meaning”he adds.
As of March 1, a platform against “fratricidal war” was signed by 293 Orthodox religious. Several signatories of the text have been sanctioned by the patriarchy, confides one of them, on condition of anonymity. “Some were moved from their parish where they had served for years and replaced by priests loyal to the authorities”he said, calling the Russian offensive a « catastrophe ».