Church of the Nativity of the Virgin (UOC-MP) in the village of Vyazívka Naroditsky district of Zhytomyr region, built in 1862, severely damaged by Russian shelling.
Orthodox Christians are not the Amish. Or Quakers. Or Jehovah’s Witnesses. We have not historically or contemporarily forsworn earthly power. If anything we have rushed to embrace it and been very put off when we lose it. Furthermore, while it might be possible to squint your eyes and find something resembling a pacifist tradition with Orthodoxy, it is a stretch to conclude that it has been a normative (or even noticeable) part of the tradition. Generally pacifism serves the same role among politically progressive Orthodox Christians as family values serve among politically conservative ones: a modern bumper sticker seeking after patristic logic.
I say this all to make clear that I never expect Orthodox clerics to decry all wars in the strongest possible terms, though I do have a vague expectation that they will discourage violence and “seek peace and pursue it.” Even with these relatively controlled expectations, however, I have been not just disappointed, but genuinely shocked and horrified by the behavior of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow following Vladimir Putin’s unjustified and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. An invasion which, by the way, has destroyed sixty-two hospitals, including a maternity hospital, has destroyed or damaged at least 300 schools, and has killed more than 500 civilizans. His is not the behavior of a Patriarch loyally serving his emperor or even of a guy who is not quite ready to give up his direct line to the Kremlin, these are the words of a dangerous cult leader, who has completely bought his own propaganda, and in doing so has forgotten fundamental values and principles that underlie not only Orthodox Christianity but basic decency and logic.
I will, in the interest of time, ignore here Patriarch Kirill’s nondescript and non-committal initial statement following the invasion, and instead choose to focus on his Forgiveness Sunday sermon, a sermon that can count among its negative effects making a leading Orthodox cleric look to the outside world (an outside world that I assure you actually has very little information about Orthodoxy) like Pat Robertson with less stage presence and more robes. Putting aside for a moment his bizarre claim about gay pride parades (I will get back to that), let’s talk about this “metaphysical battle” that His Holiness sees taking place in Ukraine. It is a battle, by his reckoning, between good and evil on which he is firmly planted on the side of good (I mean, do not we all think that). Except it is also a battle that is, once again by his own admission, a fratricidal war in which Orthodox Christians are killing other Orthodox Christians. This obviously is a fact that should excite our horror, but let’s take Patriarch Kirill’s logic here. Let’s assume that those Christians on “the other side” have somehow renounced the grace of their baptism, have chosen to align themselves with the forces of evil. Perhaps in this case, violence within the Church of Christ that while tragic is unavoidable.
But this is also a war whose missiles and rockets threaten to destroy some of the most sacred sites in the Orthodox world. Has St. Sophia’s Cathedral also chosen the side of evil? Has the Church of the Tithes made an alliance with NATO? Now before anyone jumps to the comments to decry the fact I care about “buildings” while people are dying, let me be clear: The loss of human life is obviously the greatest tragedy of this conflict. But, let’s be very frank, Orthodoxy is not a faith tradition known for believing that buildings are “just buildings.” Orthodox Christianity is filled with sacred sites and sacred objects and encourages their veneration. Furthermore, it is not a stretch to suggest that a large part of modern Orthodox identity is formed around the grief of our sacred sites being desecrated by others. From the Hagia Sophia to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, we have shaped much of our own sense of self around the loss of our holy places. It strikes me as shocking at best that now a Patriarch will stand idly by and watch us commit these sacrileges ourselves.
In his very unsatisfying response to the World Council of Churches, Patriarch Kirill only calls out one enemy by name: his brother co-celebrant in Christ, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. The only human threat to Orthodoxy he bothered to shame was a fellow patriarch. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise given the history of tension between the two Sees, but it still strikes one as odd. And when I connect it to his lack of concern for Orthodox blood and Orthodox churches, I cannot help but see a pattern emerge.
Which brings me back to those loyalty test gay pride parades. I am just going to assume for a minute that this was not some kind of rhetorical flourish or pandering. I am just going to assume that the Patriarch of Moscow believes that liberal democracies demand other nations hold gay pride parades as a test of their loyalty. It is a clearly crazy idea, but people believe crazy things. I, for instance, believe a first century Palestinean Jew was the incarnation of the Creator of the Universe. Assuming this is the Patriarch’s belief, it can also be assumed that he believes that to keep Kyiv from having to hold a gay pride parade (something that has already happened, by the way) it is worth killing Orthodox Christians and destorying Orthodox churches. He believes that the parade would be the greater sacrilege. And that is where we go from very conservative mainstream religious leader to cult leader. It is also where we transition from offering one legitimate interpretation of the Orthodox tradition to radically breaking with the past, because it is here that Patriarch Kirill starts to venerate the modern political ideology of traditional values at the expense of those things, like human life and holy temples, that Orthodoxy has historically held sacred. In a world where anything can suddenly become sacred, well, brothers and sisters, nothing is sacred. And in a world where nothing is sacred anything, even the horrific images from the sacred land of the Kyivan Rus that now fill our television screens and nightmares, can be justified.
Like every other sane person on the planet, it is my fervent prayer that the violence in Ukraine ends soon. But even if a ceasefire were declared tomorrow, I am not sure I could unlearn what I now know about the Patriarch of Moscow and his utter disregard for holy things.