The war in Ukraine – A battle of spirits that smells of burning

It is something pious – yes, almost innocently or humbly – over the image that Russian President Vladimir Putin sent out to the world after the Orthodox Christmas celebration on 7 January. On this perhaps very important day in the Russian church year, the composition of the picture is no coincidence. Because here the president allows himself to be blessed by a priest with a cross in the foreground, and frescoes with holy men in the background. It happens in the stronghold of power, the tsars’ private chapel, in the Church of the Annunciation, in Moscow’s Kremlin.

The man who is surrounded by candlelight, but which stands completely alone, will tell a story. That he stands alone against the world? That he is alone against the scumbags, even the bad, domestic, helpers, who fail when the Russian people are tried in war? That he is strongest when he is alone with his god?

The possibilities are many. But the message is one: The pious-looking man, who uses every natural opportunity to emphasize that he is a deeply religious man, and also the patron of the church, will tell the world that he stands firmly – but humbly – in the just cause. Which of course is the war in Ukraine.

– The strongest man in the world, he is the one who stands most alone, says Henrik Ibsen’s Dr. Stockmann. As is well known, he fought against the compact majority, prejudice and stupidity. Putin should know the play well. It is often staged in both Moscow and the president’s hometown of St. Petersburg. And it is ideologically challenging, because especially in a post-Soviet world, it is about the individual’s struggle against superior power. There was a tremblingly intense atmosphere in the hall when, as a young student in 1979, I saw the eponymous Taganka Theater’s production in Moscow. At that time Leonid Brezhnev was still in charge in the Kremlin, and Ibsen was obviously a revolutionary.

It’s just that that Dr. Stockmann, as we know – the man who felt strongest when he stood alone – then lost his cool. He lost everything, and was crushed by the compact majority. And Ibsen’s drama has – for whatever it’s worth in this context – as you know this title:

An enemy of the people

So to the point: While Putin emphasized standing alone in the Church of the Annunciation in Moscow’s Kremlin, there was a big party in the Cave Monastery in Kyiv. It was the first time that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church could celebrate a church holiday in this historically most important place for Orthodox Christianity in the East Slavic tradition.

The monastery was founded in 1015, it was in these caves by the river Dnipro that the monk Nestor wrote down the history of the founding of Kyiv Rus, the East Slavic great power that is the starting point for both Ukraine and Russia. It was just before Harald Hardråde’s father-in-law, Jarolav the Wise, took Kyiv from his brothers and became sole ruler of the kingdom.

But just before the New Year the Russians were thrown out of the historic sanctuary Grotteklosteret. Or rather, it was the Moscow Patriarchate that was thrown out. And in it moved, in a historical perspective, the brand new Orthodox Church of Ukraine, approved by the Patriarch in Constantinople in 2019. So it was this church that celebrated this year’s Christmas with lots of people, and what the Moscow Patriarchate claimed were icons and religious relics that had been stolen from them. Kyiv has taken over a number of churches and church property connected to Russia, which the Moscow Patriarchate undoubtedly has. Seen from Kyiv, the Moscow Patriarchate in today’s Ukraine is a 5th column.

Our Lord is, then a battlefield. Or to put it with one of Putin’s staunchest allies in his war adventures in Ukraine, the patriarch of Moscow and all Rus, Kirill. He accuses Kyiv of religious persecution by the Moscow Patriarchate and their remaining souls in Ukraine, and compares what is happening now in Ukraine to the Bolshevik destruction of churches and congregations after the revolution in 1917. Christmas Day in the Orthodox church calendar, January 8, he said.

– The same type of devilry is taking place that we saw in Russia after the revolution.

The West is playing Svarteper about Ukraine

Kirill calls the powers that be in Kyiv for a “godless regime”. He calls those who still support the Moscow Patriarchate “martyrs” participating in a “holy war”. And while Putin talks about the need to “denazify” Ukraine, Kirill talks about the need to “de-satanize” the country. So although the task of the two appears to be the same, namely to crush Ukraine, the division of labor is clear. It is probably only right and reasonable that satan is the church’s domain.