Patriarch Kirill turns eighty on November 20. Who travels to Moscow to honor him, and who stays home, will show where the Russian church now stands in a divided Orthodox world.
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Religion and Politics
“Symbolic War” on European Sanctions Bulgaria Shields Patriarch Kirill from the EU
It should come as little surprise that Bulgaria’s new government—which made no secret of its Kremlin sympathies long before last spring’s elections—has now stepped into the role once played by Viktor Orbán: blocking the inclusion of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in the European Union’s sanctions regime. With Hungary’s new government finally willing to let Kirill…
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Religion and Conflict
Is the Truth an Antinomy? Metropolitan Mark and the Limits of Religious Tolerance
For the first time, the Russian anti-war diaspora is calling on a European government to hold a high-ranking hierarch of the Moscow Patriarchate accountable for his public support of the war in Ukraine. The target of the petition is Metropolitan Mark (Golovkov), appointed as Exarch of Western Europe by the Holy Synod of the Russian…
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Culture and Arts, Religion and Politics
The Right Icon in the Right Place How Putin and Patriarch Kirill are Turning Sacred Art into a War Talisman
In early April 2026, two of the most revered icons in Russian Orthodoxy—Our Lady of Vladimir and Our Lady of the Don—were removed from the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and delivered to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. For decades, they had been in the museum’s care, under conditions the state itself had sponsored. Yet…
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Religion and Conflict, Religion and Politics
Mercy “in a Bubble”: Patriarch Kirill and the Prisoners He Refuses to See
On December 19 (December 6 in the Julian calendar still used by the Russian Orthodox Church), the feast of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, a patriarchal message was read in all Moscow churches, timed to coincide with the charitable campaign “Day of Mercy and Compassion for All Who Are Held in Prison.” The choice of feast…
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Inter-Orthodox Relations, Religion and Conflict
The Imperial Identity of the Russian Orthodox Church in Estonia and the War in Ukraine
Although the full-scale war in Ukraine has caused great sacrifices for the Ukrainian people, it has also had a sobering effect. The West has started to understand Russian imperial ambitions and the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) as an apologist and soft power tool for the Russian world in justifying the actions of…
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Religion and Politics
Estonian Government Suddenly Speaks of Heresy Pressure Continues on the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate
In early May, Estonian Interior Minister Lauri Läänemets met with representatives of the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (EOC-MP) and shortly thereafter gave an interview to the ERR news channel in which he stated that he had given them a way out of the predicament created by the Russian leadership’s war against Ukraine,…
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Religion and Conflict
The Moscow Patriarchate and the “Struggle for War”
On March 27, 2024, an extraordinary session of the World Russian People’s Council (WRPC) was held in Moscow. Patriarch Kirill personally presided over the congress. The main event of the Congress was the approval of the Edict (in Russian: Nakaz) of the XXV World Russian People’s Council, “The Present and Future of the Russian World.”…
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Religion and Conflict
Stop Following Herod and Follow Christ Open Letter to the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR)
Lena Zezulin addresses the bishops of ROCOR on support for the Moscow Patriarchate two years into Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Religion and Conflict
By Silence God is Betrayed…Again
On May 11th, 2023, Moscow priest John Koval was defrocked by the ecclesiastical court after being suspended by Patriarch Kirill in February of the same year. His offense was replacing the word “victory” with “peace” in the “Prayer for Holy Rus’” mandated by the Patriarchate of Moscow to be included in all litanies. The “offensive”…
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Church Life and Pastoral Care, Religion and Conflict
An Act of Lighthearted Betrayal How Moscow's Official Church Hunts Down Her Anti-War Priests
There were relatively few people in Moscow who knew Fr. John Koval before February 2023. Native to Luhansk, Ukraine, he moved to Moscow and graduated from the famous Central Music School of the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory. He received theological training at St. Thikhon Orthodox University of Humanities before being ordained some twenty years ago…
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Religion and Conflict, Religion and Politics, Theology
The Russian-Ukrainian War is Now a Theological Crisis
In his 2006 book titled The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, historian Mark Noll argued that the American Civil War of the 19th century was, among other things, a crisis not only of differing biblical interpretations but of the very concept of the Bible. The South and the North interpreted the Scriptural outlook on…
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Religion and Politics
Of Camels and Gnats
As I write this, the drama surrounding the expulsion of the monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onuphry from the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is being played out, a drama simultaneously sad, understandable, and scandalous. I first visited the Lavra in November of 1988. A portion of the monastery had just been re-opened, and it…
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Education and Academia, Religion and Politics
Save Kyiv Theological Academy
Students of Kyiv Theological Academy In 2022, the Russian Federation began full-scale military aggression against Ukraine. There are already many thousands of victims in this terrible war, not only military, but also civilians. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church took the side of the Ukrainian people from the very beginning of the war. Already on February 24,…
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Inter-Orthodox Relations
Church Schisms in Ukraine and Russia: Patriarch Kirill as Comparative Historian
On January 8, 2023, the Sunday after Christmas Day, Patriarch Kirill preached a sermon in the ancient Uspenskii (Dormition) Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin. The Patriarch presented a very upbeat view of the current state of the Russian Orthodox Church, which—he said—had not only revived but flourished in the post-Soviet period. He contrasted this with…
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Religion and Conflict
War and Appeals to Magical Consciousness
As was noted many times, the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine is ideologically framed by a quasi-religious doctrine that promotes Russian civilizational exceptionalism and has been branded as the “Russian world.” This doctrine is not the only quasi-religious aspect of the war. Those who endorse the war try to justify it by bringing up a…
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Inter-Orthodox Relations
Six Months Later: The Ukrainian Orthodox Church Still at the Crossroads
In late May 2022, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) held a local council to announce independence from the Moscow Patriarchate. But six months since, it is still being determined what that independence means. Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv commemorates heads of other churches in the way only primates of autocephalous churches do. Still, it doesn’t seem…
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Inter-Orthodox Relations, Religion and the Academy, Theology
True Man: Kallistos of Oxford as Orthodoxy’s First Universal Teacher of the Global Age
“Meeting him I sensed immediately a quality of authenticity,of integrity, of completeness; here I felt was a true man.He was marked by a serenity, by a transparent and luminous joy”(Kallistos Ware, “Mount Athos Today” [1976]) A Moment of Pan-Orthodox Unity In a time when the Orthodox Christian world is broken by schism—the schism over…
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Orthodoxy and Modernity
Orthodox Christianity in Eastern Europe and the Challenge of Self-Colonization
Discussions on contemporary Orthodox Christianity have often focused on the multiple ways in which historical legacies and political contexts have shaped the trajectories of Orthodoxy’s institutional development, social presence, and theological responses to important issues such as modernity, secularization, globalization, and religious pluralism, among others. Importantly, Orthodoxy’s responses to adverse historical circumstances, particularly in Eastern…
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Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, Religion and Politics
Foreign Diplomats Assess the Vatican’s Ostpolitik
Image: iStock.com/PhotoBeto It was a great opportunity to express solidarity to Ukraine by taking part in a panel discussion at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv on July 1. Four ex-ambassadors to the Holy See—Ukrainian, Lithuanian, EU (originally from Poland), Georgian—were invited to speak about the history and contemporary challenges of the Vatican’s Ostpolitik. Ostpolitik…
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Inter-Orthodox Relations, Orthodoxy and Modernity, Religion and Politics, Uncategorized
Better the Godless East than the Immoral West Great Power Logic and the Approach of the Russian Orthodox Church towards China
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, experts have been scrupulously analyzing the Russian Orthodox Church’s (ROC) reaction to the conflict. Its support for the Kremlin triggered comments about the Church being a state-controlled ideology entrepreneur which has confused Christian values with imperial geopolitics. Indeed, the inclination towards geopolitics and great power logic can be noticed in…
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Global Orthodoxy, Religion and Politics, Uncategorized
Why Did Viktor Orban Block the EU’s Sanctions against Patriarch Kirill of Moscow?
On June 3, the European Union reached an agreement on the sixth package of sanctions against Russia after difficult talks with Hungary. To avoid its veto, the other member states had to remove the name of the Moscow patriarch from the EU’s blacklist. Why does the prime minister of a non-Orthodox state so fervently support…
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Inter-Orthodox Relations
The Orthodox Church in Ukraine: War and “Another Autocephaly”
War changes many things, primarily people’s minds, but also the usual flow of time. What takes years or even decades in peacetime takes a few months, or sometimes even days, during war. On May 27, the Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the highest governing body of the church, after much debate, expressed its…
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Inter-Orthodox Relations, Orthodoxy and Modernity, Religion and Conflict
Open Appeal of the Priests of the UOC-MP to the Primates of Local Orthodox Churches
After Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, the question of the further existence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate became critical. Patriarch Kirill did not condemn the aggression and did not call the aggressor by name. He did not express any condolences to the families of the dead Ukrainians. Most of…
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Inter-Orthodox Relations
MEA CULPA 2007: Untie the knot of the ROCOR-MP Unification Act
A 2007 Act of Canonical Communion of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) with the Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (Russian: Акт о каноническом общении Русской Православной Церкви Заграницей с Русской Православной Церковью Московского Патриархата) reunited the two branches of the Russian Orthodox Church: the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) and the Moscow Patriarchate. On May 17, 2007, I…
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Religion and Conflict
Russian World or Holy World War? The Real Ideology of the Invasion of Ukraine
Kremlinology is back in a big way. Thinkers and pundits of every stripe, throughout the world, are once again seeking to uncover the secret motives and exotic ideologies of the Russian political elite. Only this time around, unlike in the days of Soviet atheism, the smoke signals coming from the Kremlin are increasingly linked with…
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Orthodoxy and Modernity, Religion and Politics
A Church at War: Heresies, History, and a Russian Orthodoxy Otherwise
Much of the criticism currently directed at the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine is organized around the idea that the Moscow Patriarchate is ideologically compromised and theologically unsound. With few exceptions, scholars, journalists, and opinion writers condemn leaders of the Russian Church as apologists for the Kremlin’s “Russian…
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Religion and Conflict
Archpastoral Exhortation Regarding the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
This is a slightly edited version of the public address Archbishop Elpidophoros delivered on Monday, April 4th, at Archangel Michael Greek Orthodox Church in Port Washington, NY, at the beginning of an event entitled “Understanding the Role of the Moscow Patriarchate in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.” The event was sponsored by the Order of…
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Inter-Orthodox Relations, Orthodoxy and Modernity
The UOC-MP at the Crossroads
Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has caught the attention of the public for multiple reasons. The humanitarian catastrophe, the sheer horror of ceaseless shelling, the shooting of protesters in the streets, the attacks on nuclear plants, the threats to assassinate President Zelensky and other leaders, and the war on democracy. One of the underreported consequences…
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Public Life, Theology
The End of “Conservative Ecumenism”
Not all critiques of secular liberalism over the past fifty years have involved flirtations with fascism, but in the apocalypse (literally, the unveiling) that Putin’s war on Ukraine has been, we can see more than ever the horrific consequences of not clearly separating the two. In January 1975, Fr. Alexander Schmemann, dean of St. Vladimir’s…
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