Holy “Rus”: Irredentism, Ukraine, and the Russian Orthodox Church
By Lieutenant Colonel J.E. Landrum, U.S. Army
Editor's Note: Lieutenant Colonel Landrum's thesis won the FAO Association Writing Award at the U.S. Army War College. The Journal is pleased to bring you this outstanding scholarship.
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Abstract
The Kremlin has a long history of using the Russian Orthodox Church to legitimize center control and regional dominance in Eastern Europe. This paper explores the historical foundations of how the Kremlin used the Russian Orthodox Church in its narrative strategies to legitimize territorial claims. After establishing this historical reference point, currently published speeches and interviews are examined to discern how historical memory is currently adapted to justify the invasion of Ukraine. To fully understand Putin’s intentions and motivations, it is important to understand the theological underpinnings of his worldview. In many ways, Putin uses tsarist era cultural and theological claims to justify his current imperialistic war against Ukraine.
“The fundamental factor of Russian history has been migration or colonization . . . all other factors have been inseparably connected therewith.”
--Russian Historian V. O. Kliuchevsky (1840-1911)
According to the Primary Chronicle, Rurik warrior Prince Vladimir defeated his rivals for full control of Kiev Rus in 980 and began a search for a unifying religion for his subjects. His first choice was to unite under one of the acknowledged pagan gods, but his people were more interested in the relatively new Middle Eastern religions spreading across the European continent: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Vladimir sent emissaries to investigate which religion was most suitable for his people. After the reports were submitted, Vladimir rejected Judaism because Israel was “cast out and scattered abroad by the hand of God.” He reasoned that a people so cursed must have displeased the Almighty thus making it unwise to adopt Judaism as Russia’s faith tradition. On the other hand, Islam was dismissed because it forbade the pleasure of alcohol, and Vladimir knew that “drinking is the joy of the Russes. We cannot exist without that pleasure.” Christianity was the last option, but there were two versions to choose from: Latin Catholicism or Byzantine Orthodoxy. Vladimir decided in 988 that the beauty of the Orthodox liturgical rite was superior to the Latin and most appropriate for his people. To make the decision official, he married a Greek princess named Anna and ordered that all the people of Kiev be baptized in the Dnieper River.
The fact that the Primary Chronicle is of marginal value for historical accuracy does not diminish what the story reveals about how Russians perceive the place of Orthodoxy in society. Within this story, one can see two distinct narratives. First, it deemphasizes the proselytizing role that occurred through the natural interactions of common Russians through trade and missionary activities and exaggerates the role of sovereign will. In this way, the decision for the “beauty of Orthodoxy” becomes a gift from the ruler to his people. Second, by emphasizing the rejection of Latin Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, a narrative of “other” is established that separates the Slavic cultural tradition from both Europe and Asia. Thus, regardless of the merits of its historical accuracy, the Primary Chronicle’s conversion story becomes a symbol of sovereign will, collective identity, and common destiny. These socio-theological artifacts were used to legitimize center control and regional hegemony; they continue to be employed to justify Russia’s most recent invasion of Ukraine.
An examination of Russian history reveals that both tsarist and communist regimes used the Russian Orthodox Church in a narrative strategy to provide policy legitimization for territorial acquisition. In some instances, Russian Orthodoxy was used internally to validate Muscovite or center dominance. At other times, Kremlin leaders used the Russian Orthodox Church to advance claims for territory in Eastern Europe. The assumption behind these claims was that the Moscow patriarchate was primus inter pares (first among equals) and endowed with a special mission to protect Orthodox Slavs. Thus, the Russian national psyche “perceived itself,” as Henry Kissinger noted, “not as a nation but as a cause, beyond geopolitics, impelled by faith, and held together by arms.” The main problem with using this logic to justify territorial acquisition is that it misses the point that not all Slavs are Orthodox, and those Slavs that are Orthodox have a self-identity that is related but separate from Russia. Despite the truth of this historical reality, the Kremlin continues to use the Russian Orthodox Church to legitimize broad territorial claims to include the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In the past several years, there has been a noticeable increase in scholarly research into the Orthodox component of Russia’s irredentist foreign policy. Walter Laqueur’s analysis in Putinism describes how the writings of nineteenth century Russian philosophers and theologians provides the intellectual and spiritual impetus for the Putin regime’s current policies. In many ways, Putin is simply resurrecting what John Strickland has identified in The Making of Holy Russia as “Orthodox patriotism,” which was a curious nineteenth century merger of nationalism and theology. Marcel Van Hepren’s book Putin’s Propaganda Machine describes how the Russian Orthodox Church supports the tactics and techniques that Russia uses to distort and manipulate Joseph Nye’s “soft power” theory to rollback Western influence.
In this article, I present the historical foundations of how the Kremlin used the Russian Orthodox Church in its narrative strategies to legitimize territorial claims. After establishing this historical reference point, I examine currently published speeches and interviews to discern how historical memory is currently adapted to justify the invasion of Ukraine. As Miguel Vázques Liñán argues, the Kremlin seeks “to establish government policies in the framework of ‘Russian tradition’; to invoke the tradition as the ‘natural’ path to achieving ‘greatness’; and, at the same time, to discredit any form of social change.” Understanding the role of religion in Russia’s foreign policy helps to illuminate the reasons why Putin is willing to engage in a costly and unnecessary war against Ukraine.
Throughout this article, there are references to Orthodox ecclesiastical offices that might be unfamiliar to some readers. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church where there is a supreme leader in the Pope, the Orthodox Church operates under the auspices of primus inter pares or “first among equals.” Thus, there are currently nine recognized patriarchate churches that are autocephalous or independently governed: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Moscow, Georgia, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria. They are recognized as autocephalous because there is consensus amongst the patriarchs within the nine recognized churches that they are independent. Patriarchs are roughly equivalent to archbishops; but as there is no supreme head of the Orthodox Church, this is an imperfect comparison. In any case, metropolitans operate under the authority of these patriarchs. As cities grow or political circumstances change, a metropolitan may claim autocephalous status. Currently, the metropolitan of Kiev has declared autocephalous status for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church thereby breaking away from the Russian Orthodox patriarchate. However, there is no consensus amongst all the other recognized patriarchs about the status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. As will be discussed in the last section of this article, this is a source of political contention between Kiev and Moscow.
Creating the Boundaries of “Holy Rus”
The establishment of the Russian Empire is the story of how a relatively insignificant group of boyars and their prince conspired together to expand territory. They proved adept at working within the constraints of their political situation to survive and prosper. The Muscovite aristocracy used war, bribery, treachery, and torture to expand territorial boundaries and create a functioning state. Throughout this imperial expansion, the Kremlin used the Russian Orthodox Church to justify hegemonic claims in the region. Even the atheistic communist regime of the twentieth century eventually realized how useful religion was in domestic and foreign policy.
Establishing Center Contro
In its earliest days, Eastern Europe was a wilderness region where Slavic princes, supported by boyars, maintained control over various cities located next to river routes. These princes were not much more than warlords. Trade occurred primarily with Byzantium to the south and Poland-Lithuania and Finland to the northwest.
Although speaking a common language, the inhabitants of Eastern Europe lacked a Charlemagne (747-814) who created something that might be called a Frankish kingdom, which included various cities and sub-regions in Western Europe. The highest form of self-identification for inhabitants of Eastern Europe was with a prince and a city. Mongolian domination from the mid-thirteenth century to the fifteenth century did not help in this regard, as various princes competed amongst themselves for survival under the tribute system of the Golden Horde.
From 988 to 1299, Kiev, not Moscow, was the spiritual center of the Eastern Slavs. It was the location where Vladimir financed and built the Church of the Tithe, the first Orthodox Church in the region. His adoption of the faith and establishment of the kingdom made the Grand Prince of Kiev the most influential ruler in the region. Kiev’s location on the Dnieper River and its proximity to Poland and the Baltic Sea resulted in a more cosmopolitan perspective. Other cities rose in prominence in Eastern Europe, too. The princes of Vladimir and Tver were wealthy and highly regarded. However, Novgorod, located to the northeast of Moscow, stood out as the most economically prosperous. As a port city, it was a hub of trade between the Slavic, Finnish, and Baltic peoples. The citizens of Novgorod were wealthy and embraced a system of governance where the prince and other government officials were elected. In contrast, Moscow was a mere trading outpost on the banks of the Moskva River where a wooden fort (kremlin in the Slavic language) provided a relatively safe place on the east-west trade routes for wealthy merchants from Kiev, Novgorod, Vladimir, Tver, and Constantinople to board while they traded. The Slavic people living around Moscow lived in the forest and provided raw materials such as furs, timber, turpentine, and wax in return for more refined products such as ironworks and wine. If not for one of the most cataclysmic events in European history, Moscow may never have amounted to anything more than a wilderness city.
When the Mongols of the Golden Horde invaded Europe in the thirteenth century, they divided the region into three sectors. Lands east of the Volga River were designated an occupation zone where they would permanently settle. The area from the Volga River to the Dnieper River was designated a tribute zone. Princes in these areas were granted full autonomy if they paid a tribute of goods and services to the Khan. All lands to the West of the Dnieper River were considered a hostile zone, and the policy was to secure these areas through destruction. As a result, the Golden Horde systematically and mercilessly decimated cities such as Kiev, Krakow, and Danzig. The Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus Maximus escaped the destruction by moving his seat northeast from Kiev to Vladimir in 1299.
The princes of Moscow, however, were clever in their dealings with the Golden Horde, which established a capitol in Sarai to the south of Moscow. In exchange for peace, the princes faithfully paid the requisite tribute and worked on behalf of the khanate to secure tribute from neighboring kingdoms. In many ways, the princes of Moscow acted as tax collectors for their master, and treachery was abundant as the Moscow princes proved willing to betray fellow countrymen for profit. The khanate rewarded this unscrupulous ambition by allowing the Moscow princes to expand control over neighboring villages.
Grand Prince Ivan Kalita (1288-1340) emerged during this time as the prince who used the khanate’s favor to significantly increase Muscovite prestige and territory. Profiting from migration to his city, Ivan became wealthy and bought surrounding territory. His insatiable appetite for territory caused his people to grant him the sobriquet of “John the Purse,” which was appropriate. His most important investment was the building of the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow. After visiting the cathedral in 1353, Metropolitan Peter, Maximus’ successor, moved the seat of Russian Orthodoxy from Vladimir to Moscow stating, “God will raise this town above all other towns. Saints have been buried here, and here shall my bones be buried.” The Muscovite grab for religious authority over Eastern Slavs was completed in 1453 when Vasily II (1425- 1462) succeeded in establishing Moscow as an autocephaly, an independently governed church, after the fall of Constantinople. With the establishment of this ecclesial jurisdiction, the Russian Orthodox Church became a self-governing entity with the patriarch located in Moscow.
To fully understand Russian exceptionalism, one must come to terms with the impact that the fall of Constantinople and the establishment of the Moscow autocephaly had on the Russian psyche. This event was simultaneously a great tragedy and the granting of a divine mission to the Russian people. Metropolitan Macarius, a leading Orthodox theologian of the time, suggested that leadership of the true Christian faith was reduced “to our fatherland alone. Within Greece and all the East since the fall of Constantinople, enlightenment has gone into decline.” In this quote, the full expression of Russia as the protector of the true Christian faith contrasted with the West’s “enlightenment decline” is communicated -- a theme that still echoes in the Russian Orthodox Church today. Moscow thus becomes the “Third Rome” from which the “Kingdom of Heaven” would flow to the world.
As Moscow’s population increased, the people surged outside the confines of the Oka-Volga valley. Led by Orthodox missionaries, Muscovite settlers moved north and established settlements that directly challenged Novgorod’s access to profitable fur trading areas. Desiring to annex Novgorod under his control, Grand Prince Ivan III (1462-1503) cut off grain supplies to Novgorod; and when hunger in the city set one faction against another, he stoked dissension by playing favorites based on political expediency. As the city weakened in the turmoil, he used the cultural legitimacy conferred through the establishment of the Moscow autocephaly to claim that Novgorodians, because of their trade connections with the West, were pagans in league with the Catholic Poland-Lithuanian King Casmir I. Ivan III mobilized Muscovites to form a holy army to defend the faith. According to historian Harold Lamb, “This small war had become a popular war because the Great Prince at Moscow egged on his unruly people to fight for their religion.” Thus, in the narrative that leads to national myth, the Battle of Shelon in 1471 was a divinely ordained victory over Novgorod in which the princes of the holy city of Moscow successfully protected the faith from outside influence.
In 1480, Ivan III surpassed this achievement by leading his army to the Oka River where he successfully faced down the Khan of the Great Horde. Almost incapacitated with fear, he refused to cross the river and engage the Tatar army in combat. After several weeks, his opponents withdrew from the field. Moscow never again paid tribute to the increasingly dysfunctional khanate, and this is collectively known as the date when the Tatar yoke was finally broken. Emboldened by his success, Ivan III conquered Tver and Ryazan in 1485 and launched several military expeditions to seize Baltic territories from the Poland-Lithuanian empire. He successfully capitalized on Russia’s assumed role “as a new Israel . . . with their capital in Moscow, the new Jerusalem” to stake an imperial claim.
Ivan III’s rule is important because of the significant historical artifacts that emerged during his reign. The transfer of religious influence from Kiev to Moscow, the defeat of Novgorod as Moscow’s main rival, the casting aside of the Tatar yoke, and, most significant of all, the acquisition of territory were pivotal events around which the Russian state came into existence. In this state, a narrative of a Slavic people united through Orthodoxy under Muscovite rule emerges. Thus, just before his death in 1505, the Moscow patriarch granted Ivan III the magnanimous title, “Johannes by the mercy of God, Emperor of All Rus and Great Prince of Vladimir and Moscow and Novgorod and Pskov and Tver and Perm and Ugra and Boghar, and the rest.”
Despite the emergence of an exceptional identity based on religious favor, there was still some separation between church and state in Russia. According to historian John Strickland, Russian Orthodox clergy certainly emphasized submission to the state as a theological virtue, but they maintained a belief system that was formed by universalist theology that transcended connections to ethnicity or nationality. After all, it was Greek missionaries Cyril and Methodius who brought Christianity to the Slavs, and the teachings of Christ as recorded in Biblical texts emphasized that his followers would “make disciples of all nations.” However, the tsars succeeding Ivan III would merge the Russian Orthodox Church with the state and continue territorial expansion.
Domestic Consolidation and Regional Expansion
Despite Moscow’s growing power, Ivan IV (1533-1584) established his reign over a backward people. Terrified of external influence, the powerful Orthodox clergy held closely to a mystical, hagiographic, and ritualistic version of Christianity that viewed Western science and philosophy as heretical concepts. The eastern church lacked the scholasticism of a Saint Thomas Aquinas in which faith and science were eloquently merged. Because of this insularity, Russia was incapable of producing the scientific knowledge to keep up with advancements around the world. Any modern architecture or structural engineering within the Kremlin came from the West. As one of the most powerful institutions, monastic orders possessed one-third of all Russian lands, and it was this group, in conjunction with the boyars, that controlled the reigns of Russian culture and caused inevitable confrontation with Ivan IV.
The ruling elite considered Russia the defender of the faith against heretical Catholics to the west and pagan Muslims to the south. Metropolitan Makarii used Ivan IV’s coronation in 1547 to declare him the “Tsar of Moscow and all of Rus.” Upon reception of this title, Ivan IV had the palace walls decorated with paintings of Old Testament scenes to emphasize his role as emperor of the Slavic people. When he defeated the Tatar remnant in the 1552 Siege of Khazan, a town to the east of Moscow, Ivan IV effectively expanded his empire and seemed to confirm his divine destiny.
After the victory of Khazan, Ivan IV was faced with a decision about where to expand next. The boyars and Orthodox clergy wanted him to move south against the hated Ottoman Turks, but Ivan IV wanted to seize the profitable ports to the west in Livonia and launched a war of conquest in 1558. He considered the boyars and clergy who resisted him traitors and decided to consolidate control over both groups. The response was brutal. Ivan IV established the oprichnina, a group of radically loyal followers, to persecute members of the boyar and clergy who opposed him. The oprichnina tortured and killed thousands during their reign of terror. Lands were confiscated and the tsardom increased in power. With the effective consolidation of church and state, Ivan IV pursued his disastrous war with Livonia until 1583 when he submitted to terms that cost Russia much of its western territory. When he died a year later, he left the state in shambles with no clear successor and vulnerable to Western influence. It would take decades for Russia to recover from Ivan IV’s reign, and it was a war to protect Orthodoxy that helped Russia reemerge as an international power.
When the Romanov dynasty was established after the “Time of Troubles,” territorial expansion justified through religious claims continued. In response to Polish attempts to establish the Catholic Uniate Church in Ukraine, an Eastern liturgical rite under the ecclesial authority of the Roman Catholic Church, Tsar Alexis I (1645-1676) signed the Pereislav Agreement in 1653 to protect Orthodoxy and bring Ukraine “under his high hand.” Russia’s subsequent victory in the Russo-Polish War (1654-1667) resulted in the establishment of an autonomous Ukrainian Hetmanate under Kremlin control. Russia became a major European power.
Attempting to modernize Russia, Peter the Great (1682-1725) brought the church under his direct control in 1701 by refusing to allow the patriarch to be replaced after the death of the incumbent. Peter viewed the Russian Orthodox church as an instrument to support his efforts to modernize Russia along the lines of other European states. To this end, he appointed Orthodox clergy from Ukraine to positions of influence because they integrated elements of Western hermeneutics into their theology.
Whereas traditional Orthodoxy placed an emphasis on monasticism and relic veneration as key components of holy life, the “Kiev School” adopted Western theological norms focusing on sermons and reconciling theology with Aristotelian philosophy. Peter went even further in 1721 with the establishment of the “Holy Synod,” composed of Orthodox clergy subservient to the state and administered by a secular minister known as the oberprokuror or chief procurator.
The state’s power grab over the church during this time was controversial and resulted in a clash between center control and identity. The rank-and-file clergy and the “Old Believers,” a group of ultra-conservative Russian Orthodox adherents, rejected the idea of incorporating apostate Western religiosity into the “true faith.” It was only in the nineteenth century, an age of revolution, nationalism, and romanticism, that this antagonism was addressed. During this time, theologians, philosophers, and bureaucrats developed a doctrine that sought to mitigate the spirit of the age and secure the monarch from challenge.
The nineteenth century was a time of revolution in which long-established institutions were being questioned. In this revolutionary milieu, assumptions about religion and governance impacted Russia’s national identity and led to rebellion. Most notably, Nicholas I’s (1825-1855) brutal suppression of the Decemberists Revolt of disaffected army officers in 1825 prompted him to look for a unifying creed. Thus, he tasked his education minister, S. S. Uvarov, to develop a curriculum known as “official nationality,” which extolled the virtues of autocracy, Orthodoxy, and nationality.
According to Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, “official nationality” held that Russian subjects were bound to “unqualified submission” to Russian Orthodoxy, the Tsar, and Russian state.
Although communist ideology reduced the significance of Orthodoxy in Russian life, the narrative of Russian exceptionalism never receded. In their discourse, Soviet leaders extoled communism as a replacement for the Russian Orthodox Church as the impetus of Russia’s exceptionalism. “Until the final victory of socialism throughout the world,” Lenin famously stated, the Bolsheviks must “exploit the contradictions and antagonisms between the two imperialisms, between the two systems of capitalist states, inciting them one against the other.” Russia would lead the international proletariat in its struggle against the bourgeoise capitalist regimes. For all intents and purposes, the Kremlin tried to eliminate Russian Orthodoxy from the fabric of society. The patriarchate was abolished, and troublesome priests were imprisoned or executed.
For all that, Stalin eventually found he required the Russian Orthodox Church. In the war against Nazi Germany, Stalin needed to maintain domestic morale and secure an alliance with Western powers. With a total count of military and civilian deaths of twenty-four million, no European country suffered more in World War Two than Russia. Despite the Soviet crackdown on religion, the common people found the strength to endure this sacrifice in their Orthodox faith. On the international front, there was deep distrust of the Soviet regime because of its atheistic policies. Roosevelt wanted to provide Lend-Lease assistance to help Russia, but he encountered resistance from conservative, isolationist politicians who distrusted an atheistic regime that had recently collaborated with Nazi Germany on the infamous partition of Poland.
To solidify national resolve and Western war support, Stalin reestablished the patriarchate, released priests from jail, and signed a concordat that legitimized the church in the Soviet Union. Thus, he gave his people a spiritual impetus for sacrifice and international observers an ostensible reason to believe that the Soviet Union was softening its position vis-à-vis religious matters. Although heavily infiltrated by the state intelligence service, the Russian Orthodox Church survived and operated in the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991 and beyond. The Soviet leaders learned the lessons of the Tsars they detested. Although Orthodoxy was a bourgeois institution, it could be useful for serving state purposes if controlled. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia found itself once again in need of a unifying creed to confront the economic, demographic, and military challenges facing the country.
Russian Irredentism in the Twenty-first Century
Scholars have documented well the enormous economic challenges Russia faced as it transitioned from a communist to a free market economy in the 1990s. During this transition, the Kremlin struggled to transfer publicly held property to private citizens, enacted inflationary monetary policies, failed to efficiently collect taxes, and engaged in ill-advised bond ventures to raise revenue. In 2000, the Putin regime stabilized the economic situation by doubling down on oil production in a time of increased prices, but this only reinforced Russia’s lack of economic diversity and vulnerability to the vicissitudes of the oil market.
Almost thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia is still facing negative trends in the economic, demographic, and military elements of national power. With roughly 67 percent of its exports based on the fossil fuel industry, the Russian economy is still anchored to the oil market. Thus, when oil revenues fell from $526 billion in 2013 to $230 billion in 2016, Russia fell further behind economically. Russia’s aggressive foreign policy also continues to disadvantage the Russian economy. Western sanctions have cost Russia $300 billion from 2014 to 2016 and have only intensified since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Alcoholism, violent crime, rampant abortion, and a declining birthrate are causing Russia’s population to decrease to irreplaceable levels. Much needed upgrades in the Russian military have stalled, and spare parts for maintaining the current capabilities are increasingly difficult to sustain. These facts led Stephen Blank to argue that “neither the military buildup nor Putin’s system are sustainable over time.” In short, Russia’s self-perception of greatness is far from reality.
When reality does not reconcile with self-perception, the people become discontented, and revolutions are born from discontent. To be sure, the potential of revolution is a great concern for Putin who seems convinced that the Color Revolutions in Ukraine (2004) and Georgia (2003) were the result of Western NGOs and U.S. State Department interventions. In 2014, Putin advised his security council of the dangers of such revolutions: “In the modern world extremism is being used as a geopolitical instrument for remaking spheres of influence. We see what tragic consequences the wave of so-called Color Revolutions led to. For us this is a lesson and a warning. We should do everything necessary so that nothing similar ever happens in Russia.” In this way, the Color Revolutions became a convenient way to blame “the other” for Russia’s problems.
Putin’s fear of a “Color Revolution” in Russia caused him to latch on to historical notions of Russian exceptionalism, which relies heavily on center control and regional dominance. To this end, Vladislav Surkov, a chief adviser to Putin, developed a concept known as “sovereign democracy.” This is the idea that Russia is a democracy, but it is one that is closely managed. In a speech to Russian businessmen in 2005, Surkov claimed “we are not just for democracy” but also “for the sovereignty of the Russian Federation.” Of course there is little separation between the Russian Federation and the Putin regime. One cannot help but notice a natural progression from Nicholas I’s “autocracy” of “official nationality” to the “sovereignty” of the Putin regime. As will be demonstrated below, the Russian Orthodox Church plays an important role in legitimizing Russia’s current autocracy. In terms of regional dominance, Kremlin leaders still have a close association to the notion of Russia as the protector of Slavic people abroad, and Ukraine is the centerpiece of this nationalistic and imperial perspective.
Ukraine in the Crosshairs
Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the media has highlighted Vladimir Putin's desire to restore the Soviet Union. While it is true that he admires the strength of the Soviet Union, it is important to note that he associates more closely to the Russian nationalism of the Russian Empire than the socialist idea that the Soviet Union represented. Putin, therefore, has a low regard for Vladimir Lenin who promoted the idea of a Great Russia that was distinct from Ukraine, a position that was formalized in the Union Treaty of 1922, and he admires Joseph Stalin who disagreed with Lenin and advocated for Ukraine as an integral part of the Russian nation. For Putin, the ideologies of territory and culture are more important than political ideologies.
Putin's reactionary commitment to Russian nationalism was reflected in his first speech to the Dumas in 1999. He did not lament per se the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Instead, he reminded the audience of Russian greatness. According to Putin, "Russia has been a great power for centuries, and remains so. It has always had and still has legitimate zones of interest. We should not drop our guard in this respect, neither should we allow our opinion to be ignored." In referencing Russia's power in terms of centuries, he is clearly harkening back to the tsarist regimes that preceded the Soviet Union, and references to "zones of interest" are directly related to the former territories of the Russian Empire. Thus, Putin’s reference to the fall of the Soviet Union as the "greatest geopolitical tragedy of the century” correlates to the loss of territory and associated cultural connections. Although Putin ostensibly rejected conservatives who “idealize pre-1917 Russia,” Putin looks to the past for inspiration. “We need historical creativity,” Putin proclaimed in 2013, “a synthesis of the best national practices and ideas, and understanding of our cultural, spiritual, and political traditions . . . and to understand that national identity is not a rigid thing that will last forever, but rather a living organism.” To this end, he seems to believe that it is his personal mission to restore the glory of the Russian Empire through territorial acquisition.
In a July 2021 essay, Putin unambiguously used religion to legitimize his irredentist ambitions vis-à-vis Ukraine. Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, according to Putin, are “bound together” through baptism in “the Orthodox faith.” He went on to describe how parts of the so called “Ancient Rus” were victims in the sixteenth and seventeenth century of “Polonization and Latinization.” Putin highlighted the Pereislav Agreement as an example of the spiritual unity between Russia and Ukraine—or as he put it in the speech Malorossia (Little Russia). He highlighted the language and cultural connection of the two countries, and he stated that modern Ukraine was manufactured by misguided Bolsheviks and that “Russia was robbed, indeed.” Putin asserted that the events of 1991 only cemented these mistakes and separated Ukrainians “from their historical motherland.” He laments the establishment of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church autocephaly as an attack on Russian-Ukrainian “spiritual unity” and an attempt to “destroy this prominent and centuries-old symbol of our kinship at all costs.” He closes the speech saying that the “true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.”
Putin knows that international observers view Russia’s claims against Ukrainian sovereignty as irredentist and out of place in the twenty-first century; however, his regime has embraced an outcast mentality that makes it deaf to external criticism. In a 2014 article entitled “The Loneliness of the Half Breed,” Surkov articulated the assumptions behind this outcast mentality. In his article, Surkov excitedly proclaimed that “Russia’s epic Westward quest is finally over.” He leveraged historical artifacts to reinforce the notion of a historically besieged land. Thus, Catholic Poland’s seventeenth century attempt to install the “false Dmitry” on the Russian throne during the” Time of Troubles” was less “a dynastic crisis as a civilizational one.” In this besieged interpretation of history, Peter the Great’s efforts to westernize became mere “tricks in a bid to pass [Russia] for an equal of Holland, France, America or Portugal.” Austria’s refusal to support Russia in the Crimean War is equal to the betrayals of the 1990s when the West insisted that “the population, the economy, the army, and the ambitions” of Russia were “to be downsized to those of an average European country.” Russia and Europe look similar, he concluded, but they “run on different software” and cooperation is impossible. Russia “understands everybody and is understood by no one. A half-blood, a crossbreed, a weird-looking guy. Russia is a Western-Eastern half- breed nation.” The Russian Orthodox Church predictably supported this narrative.
The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, openly embraced the rhetoric of the irreconcilable aspects of East-West relations. Like Surkov, Kirill drew on historical artifacts to drive home his points. In a video posted on YouTube, Kirill proclaimed in a sermon to parishioners that the persecutions of Latin emperors Nero, Trajan, and Diocletian were “not enough to destroy the Christian faith.” He then suggested that a similar persecution is occurring “in Western Europe in these modern times.” According to Kirill, these mistakes are the secularization of Europe and the general rejection of Christianity. He predicted in the sermon that the West will once again fail, and he cited “our Church and our country” as the best example of why it will fail. Kirill doubled down on such rhetoric in a speech to the World Russian People’s Council in which he cautioned “that alien ideological models and political models that do not take into account national specificities and spiritual and cultural context, when blindly transplanted onto Russian soil, often, or rather almost always have resulted in massive upheavals and tragedies, as already happened in our country at the beginning and the end of the last century.”
At a 2017 Episcopal Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, with Putin in attendance, Patriarch Kirill spoke on the roles of church and state in Russian society. After lamenting the negative consequences of Peter the Great’s oberprokuror and the mistakes of the Soviet era, he expressed gratitude that in “today’s Russia there are no bureaucratic layers.” Kirill saw value in the current dialogue between church and state. Because of this interaction, he suggested that both institutions have the “same moral traditions . . . which today is not disputed by the state.” Addressing Putin directly, Kirill expressed his “gratitude . . . for the dialogue which we hold together, for the dialogue which is held between heads of ministries and government departments with the corresponding organizations and structures of the Russian Orthodox Church . . . I believe that this openness will be the pledge for the certain success of our fatherland.” Thus, Kirill provides a spiritual blessing to Putin’s attempts to forge a national identity--a national identity that includes Ukraine.
Based on these images of Russia as outcast and the last bastion of Christian tradition, Kirill has openly blessed the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine with the theological doctrine of “Russkiy mir” (Russian World). This doctrine reinforces and magnifies Russia’s perceived role in protecting the Russia, Belarus, Ukraine trinity from Western corruption. On March 6, 2022, Kirill openly blessed the Russian invasion as “a struggle that has not a physical, but a metaphysical significance.” Western powers, according to Kirill, are forcing the Russkiy mir to hold gay pride parades and embrace consumerism. In this way, Kirill sanctions the invasion as a holy war meant to preserve the unity of the Orthodox faithful in Eastern Europe.
The problem with this theology is that it omits Ukrainian disagreement. For example, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church attempted to gain ecclesial independence from the Russian Orthodox Church no less than four times in the twentieth century. The result of these attempts was the emergence of two separate churches: Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kievan Patriarchate and Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate. In January 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I issued a tomos, or religious edict, supporting the independence claim of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—Kiev Patriarchate. Bartholomew I’s contested authority as primus inter pares, however, emboldens Kirill’s rejection of the tomos.
Although there are no doubt sincere canonical issues related to the dispute, the loss of Russian regional influence is the main concern for both the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin. If Moscow cannot hold together its claim to Orthodox authority, then religious claims legitimizing expansion lose narrative power. According to Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Epiphanius, the Russian Orthodox Church’s ecclesial jurisdiction was “the last advance post of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.” However, this dispute has far-reaching implications amongst the broader community of Orthodox countries. For example, Greek elites have sympathies for the Russian regime, and they see the Greek Church’s support for Ukraine’s independence as problematic. Former Greek Defense minister Panos Kammenos warned that “if anything happens in the next few months, the Holy Synod will hold all responsibility for the termination of guarantees granted by Russia, due to the recognition of the illegal Church of Ukraine.” While the Serbian Orthodox Church remained loyal to Moscow, the Alexandria Orthodox Church supported Ukrainian religious independence. This split threatens the traditionalist narratives of the Russian people as the “New Israel” and Moscow as the “New Rome.” If the leaders of the most important Orthodox patriarchates reject your “messianic role,” then historical and theological legitimacy claims fall short.
While the Kiev-Moscow Orthodox controversy may seem an arcane absurdity to Western observers, the issue is very serious within the Kremlin. The Kremlin uses the schism to advance a narrative strategy of Western influence into Russian affairs meant to breed “animosity and intolerance” within the Orthodox community. Putin threatens that Russia reserves the right “to react and will do everything to protect human rights, including freedom of conscience.” Vesti News, a Russian propaganda channel, bolsters this Western interference narrative with its reporting. In one report posted on YouTube, a picture of U.S. Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt meeting with the Archbishop of Athens Bartholemew I is presented as an example of how the U.S. is interfering in Orthodox affairs. The report goes out of its way to mention that Pyatt previously worked in Kiev and closes with a commentary from an Orthodox priest who is concerned with “unusual activity by the American foreign policy agency in this Orthodox field.” In this way, Bartholemew I becomes the “antichrist” who worked with the U.S. to bring division within the Orthodox community. At the 23rd Worldwide Russian People’s Convocation, Kirill claimed that the Russian Orthodox Church was “receiving requests to hold our ground, to continue our independent line of conduct in order to conserve the unity of worldwide orthodoxy, and, most importantly, conserve the spiritual independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from all these centers of global influence.” Thus, it is the Russian Orthodox Church’s responsibility to resist U.S. and Ukraine efforts to “tear apart the last connection between [the Ukrainian and Russian] people.”
In examining the strategic choices of state leaders, it is important not to overemphasize the role of religion; however, it is also a mistake to ignore it entirely. The good news is that Putin's interpretation of Russia's messianic role in Eastern Europe is encountering some resistance. Reports of widespread protests and the reported arrests of more than 6,400 people in Russia are an indication that a large minority of Russians do not share Putin's cosmology. Despite these protests, the latest polling numbers from the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) show that 68 percent of the population support Putin's "special military operation."
Conclusion
In 2017, Sergey Aksyonov, the Kremlin’s lead on Crimean affairs, called for the restoration of the Russian monarchy. He was quoted in 2017 as saying, “We do not need the democracy in the form in which it is presented by the Western media. We have our own traditional Orthodox spiritual values. Today, in my opinion, Russia needs the monarchy.” In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Tsar Nicholas II, and a 2006 public opinion poll revealed that 19 percent of the Russian population supports the reestablishment of monarchy. Konstantin Malofeyev, an ultraconservative Russian tycoon and supporter of Ukrainian separatists in the Donbas region, bankrolls the “Double-Headed Eagle Society,” which is working to establish a monarchist political party in Russia. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, “Putin is not optimistic about such ideas. He always approaches such discussions coolly. This is well known.” Despite Putin’s downplaying of such activities, the movement for a return of monarchy reveals much about the power of Russian historical memory and its implications for the current war in Ukraine.
Within the Russian popular mind, there is a longing for a return to Russian greatness, and this greatness is rooted in a spiritual and messianic interpretation of Russia’s imperial history. This interpretation validates distrust of outsiders, venerates a strong central power, and places Moscow as the divinely ordained capitol for all Slavs in Eastern Europe. The fact that this reactionary historical interpretation still finds power in the twenty-first century is worthy of study, and Western observers, with their commitment to privatized religion, struggle to understand how a modern state could successfully use religion to inspire collective action.
Putin understands the power of religion in his culture and draws on it readily to justify his current war in Ukraine. When he references Russia and Ukraine’s “common baptistry” and “spiritual connection,” he is appealing to a popular notion of what constitutes Russian greatness and collective identity. Mobilizing this conception enables his regime to pursue an unjust and unnecessary war in Ukraine despite heavy losses in material, money, and lives. To be sure, the protests in Moscow show that there is a vocal minority that disapproves of the Ukrainian invasion, but the reality is that the Russian people seem to have a natural inclination to defer to autocracy. Even if they disagree with the policy, they will submit to sovereign will because the Russian Orthodox Church works with the state to perpetuate the idea that sovereign will, whether tsarist, communist, or sovereign democratic, is divinely ordained.
About the Author
Lieutenant Colonel Landrum is an Information Operations officer assigned to the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He holds a PhD in Security Studies from Kansas State University, and he is a 2022 graduate of the United States Army War College at Carlisle Barracks where he participated in the Carlisle Scholars Program.
