The invasion of Ukraine on February 24 by Russian forces seems to announce once again the return to a logic of power on the world level, to the detriment of international law. However, in this new order, the religious element should not be neglected in the justification of war and in the definition of the objectives of conquest.
Since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, we have witnessed the triumphant return of orthodoxy as a vector of identity conservatism. Led by Patriarch Kirill, the Russian Orthodox Church takes on a role similar to that of the Communist Party in the old regime: that of ideological legitimization of the power in place.
Far from being the passive instrument of authoritarian power, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church is a leading actor in the emergence of the new Russian national narrative, like ideologues such as Ivan Iline or Alexander Dougin, promoter of neo-eurasianism. To a Putin nostalgic for the grandeur of the USSR and Tsarist Russia, Kirill offers a mythologized version of the “Russian World”, justifying Moscow’s role in the political unification of the Orthodox peoples.
Not only does this theologico-political reference give a messianic aura to Russian power, but it adds a pseudo-historical justification to its project of military conquest aimed at reunifying the Slavic and Russian-speaking peoples, in particular those of Belarus and Ukraine, around ultra-conservative religious patriotism.
Ideological and cultural rivalry
This hegemonic ambition is obviously not welcomed by the other Orthodox Churches. Remember that Orthodoxy is more decentralized than Catholicism, organizing itself into so-called autocephalous churches. In Ukraine, the creation in 2018 of an Orthodox Church independent of the Moscow Patriarchate was also perceived as a new affront by kyiv to Russian imperial ambitions. In addition to its quest for control, Kirill’s religious leadership also raises theological and moral objections. Supporting the young Ukrainian Church at the risk of provoking a schism with Moscow, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, represents another face of Orthodoxy, closer to the Gospel through his rejection of war, of the ideologization of religion and traditionalist retreat against modernity.
It should be emphasized that the war against Ukraine supported by Kirill takes place against a backdrop of ideological and cultural rivalry with the secularized and democratic West. The violent refusal to see Ukraine turn to the West is not only a geopolitical question linked to the expansion of NATO. It is also about the rejection of Western modernity, liberal democracy and human rights.
In Kirill’s mind, the sin of the West can be summed up in two words: gay pride. If the Russian war is “holy”, it is because it comes to “liberate” the Ukrainian Orthodox from the grip of Western decadence, its materialism and its rejection of traditional values. Seen from this angle, the war in Ukraine then took on epic proportions: “We are engaged in a struggle which has no physical, but metaphysical significance”, preached the patriarch in the Christ-Savior cathedral on March 6th.
A clash of civilizations
Note that this rhetoric echoes the thesis of Samuel Huntington announcing in 1996 a new international order marked by a clash of civilizations. Much has been criticized – with good reason – for its essentialist reading, dividing the world into eight great civilizations, themselves defined by fixed religious identities.
Beyond this simplistic division, it must nevertheless be recognized that this theorist had put his finger on a reality that is now indisputable: cultural values and identities are increasingly integrated into the way in which States assert their legitimacy, define their interests and their strategies, choose their allies and their enemies.
In this world in recomposition, religious discourses acquire a new scope, which we must take note of and which we must learn to analyze with all the necessary nuances. Because if religion can be a vector of violence and hatred, it is not unequivocal. Many religious figures, especially Catholics and Orthodox, have risen to denounce the warlike discourse of Patriarch Kirill and his theological archaisms.
At a time plagued by identity conflicts, one of the keys to avoiding the clash of civilizations and promoting a civic conscience open to pluralism, human fraternity and democracy could precisely be found in the hands of the religions themselves.