- Aleem Maqbool, BBC Religion Editor
- Chernivtsi, Ukraine
April 18, 2022
caption,“I will never forget the moment when I woke up early to go to Mass and suddenly heard the shocking sounds of the bombings,” says Father Nikolai Pluzhnik
The Russian Orthodox Church echoed the Kremlin’s rhetoric to justify the war in Ukraine.
This attitude seems to have caused many Ukrainian priests and members of the Orthodox Church to turn their backs on Moscow.
“I will never forget the moment when I woke up early to go to mass and suddenly heard the shocking sounds of bombing raids,” says Father Nikolai Pluzhnik.
“The wonderful woman who cooked at our church and her son, who was in a wheelchair, were killed when an artillery shell landed in their home. And now I know of several other parishioners who have been killed,” he added.
Like most clergy in the northeastern region of Ukraine, Father Pluzhnik belonged to the local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, which follows the line marked by its headquarters in Moscow.
But now, he said, he has asked to join the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which eventually gained independence from Russia in 2019, a move never recognized by the Putinruled country.
Pluzhnik said many of his fellow priests who followed Patriarch Kirill of Moscow are doing the same because of the church leader’s stance on the war.
Credit, Father Nicolay Plushnik
caption,
Father Nicolay Pluzhnik at his church in Chuhuiv, Kharkiv Region, before fleeing to the West
Father Pluzhnik and his family fled when their region was attacked and they now have a new temporary home in the western Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi.
“When the war started, I was waiting for news from Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the ‘father’ of our church. But at first there was no reaction and then it got worse,” he said.
“Patriarch Kirill blessed the Russian army and gave his blessing to the war. Not only him, but most of the priests of the Moscow Patriarchate (Russian Orthodox Church), including some with Ukrainian roots. I was shocked,” he says.
Aside from not unequivocally condemning the massacre of innocent people in Ukraine or calling for a ceasefire, the patriarch held major televised services in Moscow to bless the troops. He also hinted in sermons that the war in the Kremlin was only for the future of Christianity.
“What’s happening today is much more important than politics,” he said last month. “We’re talking about the salvation of mankind, where will humanity end up, which side does it stand in relation to God the Savior?”
credit, disclosure
caption,
Father Cirilo, in green robes, at a recent ceremony attended by military personnel
Christian nationalism
There is a religious tone to many of the Kremlin’s narratives justifying its invasion of Ukraine. It’s a fight for the conservative ideals of the Russian Orthodox Church against a supposedly immoral outside world.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine is not only an “inalienable part” of Russian history and culture, but also its “spiritual space”.
Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury who was the spiritual leader of the Church of England until 2012, said he found Patriarch Cyril’s feelings worrying.
“There are elements in the Russian Christian tradition that can become really toxic when you put in their head a certain kind of Christian nationalism, a kind of messianic approach to the destiny of the nation,” Williams said during a visit to the country this week the western Ukraine.
Williams was part of a highprofile multireligious delegation that included Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist leaders who met with refugees fleeing the terror in the east of the country.
The former archbishop has long studied and written about the positive contribution of the Russian Orthodox Church and seems deeply saddened by the role played by the Moscow Patriarchate in the war.
“I think the growing influence of ultranationalist ideals in the Moscow Patriarchate, which often include a touch of antiSemitism, has been there for some time,” he said.
Credit, Getty Images
caption,
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Cyril on November 20, 2021
“Now this very uncritical support for Russian national ambitions manifests a very aggressive attitude towards many other Orthodox churches,” he said.
“Either they are blind or they serve the devil”
Patriarch Kirill reiterated Putin’s claim that Russian speakers and followers of the Moscow Russian Orthodox Church living in eastern Ukraine should be released after years of repression.
“Our brothers and sisters have really suffered, they are suffering because of their loyalty to the Church,” the patriarch said a week after the outbreak of war.
But Father Pluzhnik, who speaks Russian and has been a supporter of the Moscow Patriarchate all his adult life, was furious at these accusations.
“When I hear them say they’re protecting us and fighting a ‘holy war,’ I think they’re either blind or they’re not serving God, they’re serving the devil,” he said.
“We lived in peace until they arrived. But instead of protecting us, they bombed, tortured and killed. Before the war, parishioners had complete freedom to choose which church to serve and just went to the church that was closest to home “For many it didn’t make much difference whether they went to a church that followed Moscow or not, they just wanted to pray to God. Now that has changed,” he added.
Sergi Bortnik, a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy and adviser to the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, acknowledges that there has been a broad movement of people and communities across the country who have renounced their allegiance to Moscow.
“I think it’s maybe half of the 12,000 parishes[of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine]that have said they want to separate now,” Bortnik said.
“Patriarch Cyril has said nothing about all the Christians in Ukraine who have been killed, so I think our church members are free to sever their association with him as patriarch,” he added.
“The connection of our entire church in Ukraine with Moscow is now in doubt,” he said.
The goal of the Kremlin, supported by the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, was to unite Russia and Ukraine into a single “spiritual space”.
But the way they tried to do this seems to have done exactly the opposite.
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