Ukraine Ignores Russian Orthodox Church, Observes December 25 as Public Holiday

Dec 26, 2023 | Today marks the first time that Ukraine is observing Christmas as a public holiday on December 25th. Traditionally, Ukrainians celebrated Christmas on January 7th in line with the Russian Orthodox Church, following the Julian calendar. It's part of a cultural shift away from Moscow after last year's invasion.

The Russian Orthodox Leader at the Core of Putin’s Ambitions

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Patriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the invasion of Ukraine, reaping vast resources for his church in return. Now, in an extraordinary step, the E.U. is threatening him with sanctions.

Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfolded, Patriarch Kirill I, the leader of the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, had an awkward Zoom meeting with Pope Francis.

The two religious leaders had previously worked together to bridge a 1,000-year-old schism between the Christian churches of the East and West. But the meeting, in March, found them on opposing sides of a chasm. Kirill spent 20 minutes reading prepared remarks, echoing the arguments of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that the war in Ukraine was necessary to purge Nazis and oppose NATO expansion.

Francis was evidently flummoxed. “Brother, we are not clerics of the state,” the pontiff told Kirill, he later recounted to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, adding that “the patriarch cannot transform himself into Putin’s altar boy.”

Today, Kirill stands apart not merely from Francis, but from much of the world. The leader of about 100 million faithful, Kirill, 75, has staked the fortunes of his branch of Orthodox Christianity on a close and mutually beneficial alliance with Mr. Putin, offering him spiritual cover while his church — and possibly he himself — receives vast resources in return from the Kremlin, allowing him to extend his influence in the Orthodox world.

To his critics, the arrangement has made Kirill far more than another apparatchik, oligarch or enabler of Mr. Putin, but an essential part of the nationalist ideology at the heart of the Kremlin’s expansionist designs.

Kirill has called Mr. Putin’s long tenure “a miracle of God,” and has characterized the war as a just defense against liberal conspiracies to infiltrate Ukraine with “gay parades.” » | Jason Horowitz | Saturday, May 21, 2022

Catholics Made Unwelcome in Orthodox Russia | 2002

Jan 30, 2019 • Russia's Holy War (2002) - The policy of religious discrimination pursued by Putin's government is more akin with the Tsarist regime of old than a new, modern Russian state.

In Pskov, on Russia’s far Western border, demonstrators protest outside the site of a new Catholic church. “Catholics get lost, Russia for Russians, Pskov for Pskovitans!” they chant. They are members of the Russian Orthodox Church, disgusted by the “intrusion” of the Catholic religion into their country.

'I'm Shocked by My Church Leaders in Moscow' - Priest in Ukraine

Father Nicolay Pluzhnik
BBC: The Russian Orthodox Church has echoed the rhetoric of the Kremlin in justifying the war in Ukraine. It is a stance that appears to be driving large numbers of Ukrainian priests and parishioners to turn their backs on Moscow.

"I will never forget the moment when I woke up early to go to mass, only to suddenly hear the shocking sounds of bombing," says Father Nicolay Pluzhnik.

"The wonderful woman who cooked at our church and her son, who was in a wheelchair, were both killed when an artillery shell hit their apartment. I now know of several other of our parishioners who have died."

Like most clergy in the region of north-eastern Ukraine where he is from, Father Pluzhnik belonged to the branch of the Russian Orthodox Church which takes its direction from its religious leadership in Moscow.

But now, he says, has applied to join the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - which was finally granted independence from the Russian Orthodox Church in 2019, in a move never recognised by Russia.

He says many fellow priests who followed Patriarch Kirill in Moscow are doing the same because of the Church leader's stance on the war. » | Aleem Maqbool, religion editor, Chernivtsi, western Ukraine | Friday, April 15, 2022

The Guardian View on the Russian Orthodox Church: Betrayed by Putin’s Patriarch

THE GUARDIAN: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has given theological cover for Vladimir Putin’s murderous assault on Ukraine

Kirill’s militant fusion of ethno-nationalism, authoritarianism and religious identity is beyond the pale.’ Photograph: AP
In 1934, as Adolf Hitler consolidated his grip on power in Germany, a courageous group of Protestant pastors resisted attempts to create a pro-Nazi unified Reich Church. In what became known as the Barmen Declaration, they asserted the absolute separation of church and state, rejecting the “false doctrine” that “the church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans”.

It is a measure of these disturbing times that last month hundreds of Orthodox Christian clergy, scholars and lay people felt the need to issue a similar declaration, excoriating the complicity of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Their document, entitled A Declaration on the “Russian World” Teaching, condemns Patriarch Kirill of Moscow for providing theological cover for a barbarous and illegal war.

Kirill, who had close links with the KGB in Soviet times, has described Mr Putin’s leadership as a religious miracle. As bombs have rained down on Ukrainian cities, he has asserted that it is “God’s truth” that the people of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus should be reunited as one spiritual people. During a sermon delivered in Moscow last month, he portrayed the invasion of Ukraine as part of a “metaphysical” struggle against a decadent west – a civilisation deemed to have capitulated to materialism, moral relativism, globalisation and the promotion of homosexuality. Having become a vassal of the sinful west, Ukraine must be saved and restored to “Holy Rus”. This kind of conflation of race, nation and the church, the authors of the “Russian world” declaration point out, has previously been condemned as a heresy by the Orthodox tradition. » | Editorial | Sunday, April 3, 2022

Back in Business: Christianity's Second Coming in Russia | 60 Minutes Australia

For the best part of a century, Russia was a soulless, godless place. The communists made quite sure of that. With the Revolution came a grim determination to stamp out religion. Under Lenin, and particularly Stalin, Christians were enemies of the state, churches were destroyed, priests and nuns jailed, often murdered. Even church bells and religious music were banned. How times have changed. In the new Russia, there's been a Christian revival, a kind of resurrection. The Orthodox Church is back in business, and its missionaries are out in force, spreading the word.

"Russia Uses Religious Sentiments to Support Political Crusades" Religion in the Russia-Ukraine War

Mar 15, 2022 • Russian Patriarch Kirill, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has spoken of Russia's opponents as 'evil forces,' portraying Ukraine as a nation succumbing to 'sinful Western practices,' such as gay pride parades. The church's close ties to the Kremlin have been essential to getting the public to rally behind the war effort, says DW's religious affairs analyst Martin Gak.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, some 30 million orthodox Christians are split between a self-governing church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which is part of the Moscow Patriarchate. But since the invasion, the rival leaders have been united in their condemnation of Russia.

Ukraine is also home to 4.5 million catholics, who are looking to the head of their church to wage peace. A Vatican official has said Pope Francis would be willing to facilitate dialogue in the Ukraine conflict. But while the pontiff has called it a 'war which sows death, destruction and misery' - he has neither named Vladimir Putin as the aggressor, nor appealed to Kirill to intervene on the side of peace.

Russian Orthodox Church in Amsterdam Announces Split with Moscow

THE GUARDIAN: Clergy takes ‘difficult decision’ to cut ties with the Moscow patriarchate over the invasion of Ukraine

A Russian Orthodox church in Amsterdam in 2020. More than 280 Russian Orthodox priests and church officials from around the world have signed an open letter expressing their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Photograph: Koen van Weel/ANP/AFP/Getty Images
A Russian Orthodox church in Amsterdam has announced it is to split with the Moscow patriarchate in the first known instance of a western-based church cutting ties over the invasion of Ukraine.

“The clergy unanimously announced that it is no longer possible for them to function within the Moscow patriarchate and provide a spiritually safe environment for our faithful,” the clergy said in a statement posted on its website.

“This decision is extremely painful and difficult for all concerned.”

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, a trusted ally of President Vladimir Putin, has declined to condemn Kremlin’s decision to invade its neighbour, referring to Russia’s opponents in Ukraine as “evil forces.” In a Sunday sermon last week he also said gay pride parades organised in the West were part of the reason for the war in Ukraine.

The statement said the Russian Orthodox parish of Saint Nicholas of Myra had asked the Russian archbishop of the diocese of the Netherlands who is based in The Hague to grant the church “canonical dismissal.”

The clergy of the parish said they had requested to join the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Istanbul-based Orthodox branch, seen as a rival to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Kirill’s position on the war has led to unease among some Russian Orthodox priests who object to the invasion of a country often referred to as a “brotherly nation” in religious circles. » | Pjotr Sauer| Sunday, March 13, 2022

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Putin the Hypocrite?

Photo thanks to Google Images
It is to be hoped that we’ll see no more images of Putin embracing Russian Orthodox prelates. Or vice-versa! Putin’s current actions in the Ukraine are as far away from Christianity as anyone can get! Russian Orthodox prelates should give Putin a wide berth.

Is the Russian Orthodox Church Serving God or Putin? | DW English

As the Russian Orthodox Church faces mounting controversy over its hard line agendas and its close ties to the Kreml, Conflict Zone host Tim Sebastian travels to Moscow to talk to representative Vakhtang Kipshidze.

Russia: Orthodox Corruption?
After decades of suppression, the Russian Orthodox Church appears to be back in favour with the country's leadership.

Russian Orthodox Church Embroiled in Corruption Scandal
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A Russian Orthodox provincial priest was revealed to have amassed a collection of luxury cars and to keep hundreds of thousands of pounds of cash in his safe.

An undercover investigation on Russian TV into Archpriest Mikhail Grigoriev of Kazan has raised wider questions about the propriety of the country's clerics and their relationship with wealthy donors who contribute to restoration work.

In the case of Father Grigoriev, he was shown to own a BMW jeep, a Mercedes jeep, and a Mercedes saloon as well as three flats and a country house. To add insult to injury, a secret camera filmed the priest bragging about his £60,000 Swiss watch, his £12,000 phone, while talking about his love of Italian designer clothes and fine dining. In an indication of how much wealth the priest had amassed, he complained of recently being robbed of the equivalent of £300,000 from his safe. » | Andrew Osborn, Moscow | Tuesday, September 26, 2011

Russian Woman Who Wear Miniskirts 'Should Not Be Surprised If They Get Raped'
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A top cleric in the Russian Orthodox Church is under fire for saying that women who wear miniskirts and get drunk should not be surprised if they get raped.

The problem, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said, was that some Russian women confused the street with a strip club and dressed like prostitutes. Photo: The Daily Telegraph
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Orthodox Church's department for relations between the church and society, complained that Russian women dressed like strippers and suggested a nationwide dress code should be introduced to ensure both sexes dress more conservatively.

"If she (a woman) is wearing a miniskirt, it is provocative," he said. "If she is drunk at the same time then she is even more provocative, and if she herself is actively seeking contact with people and is then surprised when that contact ends in rape she is wrong."

The problem, he laimed, was that some Russian women confused the street with a strip club and dressed like prostitutes.

"A woman who is barely dressed or made up like a clown will certainly not find a man as a partner in life with an ounce of sense or self-respect," he said. >>> Andrew Osborn, Moscow | Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Russian Priest and Muslim Critic, Daniil Sysoyev, Assassinated in Church
The Russian Orthodox priest Daniil Sysoyev, 35, was shot by a masked gunman. Photo: Times Online
TIMES ONLINE: A Russian Orthodox priest known for his outspoken criticism of Islam and attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity has been assassinated in his Moscow church.

A masked gunman shot Father Daniil Sysoyev in the head and chest after asking for him by name, police said. The choirmaster, Vladimir Strelbinsky, was seriously wounded in the attack at St Thomas Church in southern Moscow.

Father Daniil, 35, died of his wounds in hospital late last night. A Russian newspaper reported that he had recently told its journalists of 14 death threats by telephone and e-mail, which he had received as a result of his work among Muslim migrants from former Soviet republics.

“They’ve threatened to cut my head off 14 times,” the priest told Komsomolskaya Pravda, adding that the Federal Security Service had contacted him last year after uncovering a plot to murder him. >>> Tony Halpin in Moscow | Friday, November 10, 2009

A Russian Church for a Saudi Mosque?
THE WASHINGTON TIMES: This delightful story just came in thanks to getreligion.org: The Saudis have recently asked permission to build a mosque in Moscow, a city where there are only four mosques and 2 million Muslims. The Russians, however, are saying they want, in return, an Orthodox church in Saudi Arabia.

As we all know, the Saudis have a habit of constructing mosques in dozens of world capitals while forbidding houses of worship for any religion whatsoever outside its Wahabist brand of Islam. They've gotten some bad PR locally for some of the hate language in textbooks at the Saudi Academy in northern Virginia. Not only are hapless Christians terrorized and jailed for daring to hold private prayer services in Saudi Arabia, but God help them should they try to convert someone to their religion. And that's for a fellow People of the Book: One can only guess at what the treatment of Buddhists and Hindus must be like.

Wouldn't it be so ironic if the Russians were the first Christian body to win acceptance of the right to build a church in, say, Riyadh? (Some of the Russians are calling for a church in Mecca, but the chances of any other religion getting a foothold within walking distance of the world center of Islam is less than zero.) Of course we all know the Saudis aren't about ready to let Bibles or other religious literature, let alone a church, anywhere near their homeland, but all the same, it's amusing to see the Russians give the Saudis a taste of their own medicine. [Source: The Washington Times / Belief Blog (Comments welcome)] By Julia Duin | December 3, 2008

Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>

Interview with Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Kyrill
Photo of Metropolitan Kyrill, possible successor of Patriarch Alexy II, courtesy of SpiegelOnline International
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Metropolitan Kyrill, foreign minister of the Russian Orthodox Church, discusses Christian values in the post-communist era, his relationship with the pope in Rome, Vladimir Putin the churchgoer -- and wrangles with SPIEGEL about homosexuality.

SPIEGEL: Your Eminence, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church seemed to have prevailed over the godless communists. But has it been able to fill the spiritual vacuum that followed?

Kyrill: I wouldn't call it a vacuum. In communism, the church had no direct way of influencing society, but it did influence Russian culture and people's awareness. I remember a tour guide in a monastery in Vologda in the early 1970s. She talked about architecture and painting as if she were giving a sermon. There was no talk of Christianity, but her speech depended on a Christian system of values. This woman was not alone. Writers and artists spoke the same way. Or, someone would see a destroyed church and discover another world beyond the gloomy prefabricated high-rises where people lived. Christian values were always kept alive among the people. They ultimately brought about the fall of communism.

SPIEGEL: Crime and corruption were rampant after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Murder, robbery and fraud became mass phenomena. Wasn't this a defeat for the church?

Kyrill: Reviving morality is a long process. We also see high crime rates in other countries. Besides, Russia faced massive social changes. Our economy was in ruins, foreign influence was growing and so was the consumption mentality, the focus on performance, all of these postmodern ideas which treat everything as relative and no longer require us to distinguish between truth and lies.

SPIEGEL: It sounds as if the present is no better than the past, in your opinion.

Kyrill: The church should have taken time to regenerate. We were weakened by atheism, and then we were faced with a double burden. We were like a boxer who walks around for months with his arm in a cast and is then abruptly shoved into the ring, accompanied by shouts of encouragement. But there we encountered a well-trained opponent, in the form of a wide variety of missionaries from America and South Korea who tried to convert the Russian people to other faiths. Religion was also marginalized by a secular way of thinking.

SPIEGEL: Is capitalism ultimately worse than communism?

Kyrill: The free market economy has certainly proved to be more effective than the planned economy. Unlike corporate executives, however, the church also believes in justice. As far as that's concerned, we have no fewer problems today, perhaps even more, than in the Soviet era. The gap between rich and poor in Russia is scandalous. That's an issue we are addressing.

SPIEGEL: You must find it obscene, the way the Russian oligarchs, with their palaces and yachts, show off their wealth.

Kyrill: It isn't the church's place to point to someone and say: He owns yachts and airplanes, so let's take away his riches and redistribute them. That happened in the 1917 revolution. At the time, they were saying that paradise was the next step after expropriation. But what we got instead was hell. May God protect Russia from repeating the same mistake. However, the government must ensure that the gap doesn't become too wide. Russia's future depends on it. ’The Bible Calls it a Sin’ >>>

Part 2:
’Men Can Control Their Drives’

This superb interview will be cross-posted at The Shrewd Economist because of several references to economic affairs in post-communist Russia.

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)