Patriarch of Moscow declared the aggression against Ukraine a “Holy War”

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Patriarch Kirill (Vladimir Gundyayev), the head of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) takes an active part in the information support of Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine.

On March 27, the so-called congress of the “World Russian People’s Council” (WRPC) organization adopted an “order” under the telling title “Present and Future of the Russian World.”

According to this document, the so-called SVO was declared a “Holy War” and protection from the West, which has fallen into Satanism.

The Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security explains what this “order” means.

The WRPC’s position can be considered de facto the Russian Orthodox Church’s position because Patriarch Kirill is the head of both organizations, and the WRPC’s governing structures include the ROC’s highest hierarchs. In addition, the WRPC is registered at the ROC’s Danilov Monastery in Moscow, and finally, the WRPC’s ‘’order’’ was published on the official website of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Thus, the Moscow Patriarchate clearly demonstrated that the Russian Orthodox Church and other structures under its control:

• use their available resources to justify aggression against Ukraine and prepare aggression against other states; justifies and supports the Kremlin encroachment on foreign territories;
• use an ideological basis to justify aggression and are doing everything possible, to mobilize Russian society in support of the Russian-Ukrainian war and other aggressive wars in the future.

The World Russian People’s Council’s order:

• opposes Russians to the rest of the world and calls for a confrontation with them in the “besieged fortress” format that is typical for fundamentalist totalitarian sects;
• is outright genocidal: the authors of the document do not recognize the right of Ukrainians to their identity and state and openly call for its destruction.

In this way, the Russian Orthodox Church does not act as a church, but as a structural unit of the Russian government and an accomplice in the aggressive war against Ukraine. The ROC is working as a network structure, and its propaganda is not limited to information structures under its control (press services, TV channels, Internet websites), The narratives’ promotion is carried out at the level of individual parishes and the ideological treatment of individuals.

The Moscow Patriarchate rhetoric is a part of combat propaganda aimed at justifying and rationalizing war and genocide, as well as the maximum mobilization of Russian society. At least that part which identifies itself with Russian Orthodoxy.