To Whom Much is Given: The Russian Orthodox Church’s Role in the Russo-Ukrainian War

Abstract

Abstract The essence of a war is in its justification. In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the state has turned to Patriarch Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) to assemble a tranche of religio-legal justifications for the war in Ukraine. Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor was instantaneously colored by theological proclamations from the Kremlin and the Patriarchate. While powerful as mere propaganda, much more is at stake. In March 2024, the ROC officially declared Russia’s “special military operation” to be a “holy war,” the first time the ROC has made such a statement since the Russo-Japanese War under Tsar Nicholas II. This article argues that the decree is the logical reverberation of a broader urge to revivify Russian imperial mores, particularly in the legitimation of warfare against Ukraine. Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill have instrumentalized one another. Patriarch Kirill gives religious substance to the Russian president’s claims of geopolitical slight, while the latter buttresses the ROC’s relevance amidst modernization. It is a partnership as nostalgic as it is pragmatic, rooted in the symphonic heyday of tsars and primates. An examination of the historical relationship between the Russian state and its church (as the ROC has come to be known) offers a multitude of lessons in the maintenance of the Kremlin’s power, the stateward trend of ROC theology, and the lengths to which states go to legitimate revanchist acts.