The Russian Orthodox Church gains a larger political role, supporting Putin’s war in Ukraine. It pushes forth new laws that should prepare to project power abroad.
The total and uncritical justification of the war allows the Patriarch of Moscow to present his requests for legislative changes to the Russian political world. A situation that, on the ecumenical front, is causing suffering for Christian communities, as a recent statement by the Conference of European Churches (CEC) indicates.
The meeting of Russian parliamentarians on the occasion of Orthodox Christmas, at which the Patriarch delivers a keynote speech (Moscow, January 29), has now reached its 14th edition.
Presided over by Valentina Matviyenko, Chairwoman of the Council of the Russian Federal Assembly, the conference allows Kirill to present his “desiderata,” convinced that the defense of “state sovereignty” in the war in Ukraine also entails that of “spiritual sovereignty.”
Among the positive legislative measures noted by the prelate is a recent law promoting the use of religious symbols. The cross reappears on heraldic emblems and civic images that the communist tradition had erased. Also important is that the definition of the traditional family has been incorporated into the Code, and that adoption practices prioritize placement with relatives and friends.
Preventing Abortion, Censoring Foul Language
Further requests particularly concern family issues and the question of abortion. Kirill is pleased that 830 private clinics have stopped performing abortions (30% of those authorized). In a vast country like Russia, “we desperately need to be a great nation” to contain the abortion phenomenon.
Apart from the moral assessment (a murder), there is a demographic necessity. “If we want our population to grow, our birth rate to increase, how can we turn a blind eye to what prevents us from following this path, to what prevents our people from developing all its colossal wealth, from becoming a truly great nation not only in name and history, but also in actual strength, which cannot develop without a sufficient number of people in such a vast territory?”
And here is the suggestion: “I consider it absolutely necessary to develop a federal law that criminalizes coercion to abortion, and I propose moving towards a total ban on abortions in private medical facilities where control over compliance with ethical and legal norms is practically impossible.” Furthermore, the abortion decision “should be made by the family, not by a single parent,” by the mother only. Therefore, counseling centers must have personnel who discourage women from abortion.
A second request is censorship of occult and pseudoscientific movements like astrology, witchcraft, and forms of divination that “exert enormous manipulative influence on people.”
Furthermore, a law on the legal status of military chaplains is urgent. There are 150 priests assisting troops in the war of aggression against Ukraine. Still, they need a regulatory framework that justifies their presence before commanders and regulates their rights.
Another request concerns protecting the Russian language against foul language, the use of foreign words, and blasphemy.
Another issue is blocking the legislative proposal to link the sale of alcohol, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages to biometric identification—a reprehensible and dangerous thing.
The Catholic Church Does Not Sign
Amid the growing presence of the Church in the legislative and political spheres, a representative of the Communist Party, allied with Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich Bortko, spoke out on a high-profile television program, “A View from St. Petersburg,” last December.
“Conservative Orthodoxy (is) a particular threat to the Russian state.” Religions are often used to pit some groups against each other and become an instrument to marginalize non-believers, atheists. Instead of civic solidarity, closed religious communities are formed, living by their own rules, which weakens the all-Russian identity, clericalizes the state, and undermines secular principles.” Statements that the World Council of the Russian People, the political “prosthesis” of the Patriarchate, qualifies as a political manifesto, a threat to Russian society at this moment, an attack on Orthodoxy and traditional religions in Russia (January 20).
Confirming the civil role of religion, there is also a marginal polemic against the Russian Catholic Church for not signing a denunciation of attacks on the religious freedom of the pro-Russian Church in Ukraine, Estonia, Moldova, and Armenia. The failure to sign the document proposed by the Christian Interreligious Advisory Committee on January 15 is likely linked to the partiality of a denunciation that ignores Russian violations in occupied territories, unduly involves the Ukrainian Catholic Church (both Byzantine and Latin rite), and instrumentally uses the appeal to freedom.
Archbishop Paolo Pezzi, Archbishop and President of the Episcopal Conference, justified the refusal by citing the Vatican Secretariat of State’s competence in these supranational matters. This did not prevent heavy criticism of his act in the national media, such as Ria Novosti.
European Churches Against the “Russkiy Mir”
Resist the empire, promote peace: Churches oppose the ideology of the “Russkiy Mir” – so titles the declaration of the conference organized by CEC, the Conference of European Churches, which brings together 114 Churches from the continent (Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox) representing 380 million believers.
The text was born at the end of a discussion held in Helsinki (December 1-3, 2025) with 90 representatives of different confessional affiliations. The imperial ideology referred to is the Russian one, but it is evoked as a danger for all Churches when they become subordinate and functional to regimes. The invitation is to promote and defend liberal democracy, despite its limits, because its values are compatible with Christian doctrine and because the proclamation of the Gospel is guaranteed freedom.
Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, fueled by the ideology of the “Russian world” (Russkiy Mir), is not only at the origin of death and suffering for millions of people but is an attack on the future of Europe and the permanence of democracy. The “Russian world” presents itself as a cultural, spiritual, and geopolitical space and, at the same time, as a sphere of influence and its own civilization. A series of ideas often without internal coherence, fluctuating between political ideology and theology in a supposed pro-Christian sense.” Something that unites imperialist ideology and “holy war.” It is based on a Manichaean and dualistic vision (good-evil, us-them, etc.) that leads the Russian Church “to an almost theological and institutional support for the invasion, silencing dissenters among its clergy and faithful. At the same time, it continues to use its ecumenical relations to promote so-called ‘traditional values,’ to present Russia’s war as an act of self-defense falsely.”
It is heresy to claim that a soldier’s death forgives sins, that war can be holy, and that Russia is the katechon, the bulwark that defends against evil and saves Christianity. Preaching hatred and aggression against the weak is against the Gospel.
Dualist Heresy?
The dissident theologian Kirill Govorun, a former close collaborator of the Patriarch of Moscow, insisted particularly on the heretical qualification of the “Russkiy Mir.” It is the main axis of Putinism and the justification for the inhumane violence perpetrated in the war. Its main theorists are Patriarch Kirill and the rector of St. John’s University in Moscow, Alexander Shchipkov. Its strong points are the so-called “traditional values,” patriotism, and the claim to represent a civilization. The latter has effectively replaced the term imperialism. It is a doctrine with heretical roots typical of Manichaean (even pre-Christian) doctrines, whose exponents seek an unlikely theological justification, as happened with Nazism.
According to Govorun, the Patriarch is convinced that he is the true leader, even compared to Putin, or at the very least, the inspiration for his policies. A drift whose deleterious outcomes are recorded first of all within Orthodoxy, as in the recent attack against Bartholomew, entrusted to the secret services (cf. here).
For Metropolitan Emmanuel (Adamakis) of Chalcedon, the aggression against the Ecumenical Patriarch is based “on an obvious spiritual and ecclesiological deviation […] the transformation of the Church into a veritable propaganda mechanism, something terrifying if considered with theological criteria, because, when the grace of the Holy Spirit gives way to espionage, then ecclesiology gives way to geopolitical opportunism” (ekathimerini.com, January 20, 2026).
