Few people here will view the policies of the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, with anything but outrage. Eighteen months ago he launched an unprovoked assault on Ukraine, and has followed up this shambolic invasion with ruthless missile attacks on the homes of Ukraine’s civilian population, on its hospitals, market places, schools and theatres.
This barrage of bombs has been complemented with a propaganda barrage which in its duplicity rivals that of Goebbels. It seems likely Putin’s army will be found guilty of human rights abuses which stagger the imagination. All this has defiled the memory of a great nation, the land of Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy, of transcendentally beautiful composers and dancers.
Yet more affronting, perhaps, is that Putin’s greatest moral and ideological collaborator in this barbaric campaign has been the Russian Orthodox Church, led by Patriarch Kirill. Patriarch Kirill is no cynical opportunist, although his close alliance with Putin, who in his words "is a miracle given by God", has led to the Russian Orthodox Church being showered with privileges and resources. Kirill genuinely believes in a "Sinfonia" of church and state, religion and imperialism marching in unison.
For the Patriarch of Moscow, the war against Ukraine, though never named as such, is a necessary and just one. The Russian army has taken the right course. Ukraine is viewed as part of the Patriarchate’s "canonical territory". His views on the gay community distort his attitudes further. On Forgiveness Sunday, March 6, 2022, he justified Russia’s attack on Ukraine during the holy liturgy: Russia had to side with Donbas, where Ukraine had been enforcing gay pride events upon the locals and conducting a eight-year genocide against Russians. Fascism in Ukraine had to be crushed. Russian soldiers were laying down their lives for their friends, as St John’s Gospel says. After the Bucha massacre he praised the " feats" of service of the Russian forces, in the main cathedral of the Russian armed forces.
What is all this to us? First of all, Kirill’s polemic is an affront to Ukrainian folk living in New Zealand. I hear this from them every Saturday when we meet in the Octagon. Second, the credibility of the Christian church worldwide is in tatters if it does not distance itself from such war-mongering.
Certainly Pope Francis did reprove Kirill in a Zoom dialogue between them, and the most recent Assembly of the World Council of Churches denounced the "illegal and unjustifiable war in Ukraine". It cited the utter devastation of Ukraine by the war and the abuses of human rights . The Orthodox delegation nearly walked out at this point, but was persuaded to stay.
Over decades the ecumenical movement, both Catholic and Protestant, has sought to promote dialogue between incredibly diverse positions. It seeks to build bridges, and create "an open platform for dialogue and encounter, for discussion and challenging one another."
It would appear, however, in the case of Kirill, to be a dialogue with the deaf. The pompous patriarch, apparently a KGB agent at one time, has not the least interest in dialogue. He is ensconced in his cocoon of power and privilege. Many Russian Orthodox priests now omit all mention of him in their prayers. One is reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer insisting on a theological criterion for membership of the worldwide church, when the racist "German Christians" were capitulating to Hitler. Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, believes there is a strong case for expelling the Russian Orthodox Church from the World Council of Churches, "when a church is actively supporting a war of aggression, and failing to condemn nakedly obvious breaches of any kind of ethical conduct in warfare".
None of us is pure as the driven snow, but there are limits, ethical and theological. Kirill and those around him have overstepped them all. They need to be shown the door.
— The Rev Dr Peter Matheson is emeritus professor, Knox Theological College, Dunedin.
