OPINION:
If the United States hopes to correctly respond to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it is critical we understand the key role religion played in his motivations.
Ukraine is a battlefront in the War on Faith. A critical moment in years building up to this war was the creation of a separate Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2018, independent of the Russian Orthodox Church.
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The church split set the stage for Ukrainians of faith to chart their own course, separate from the direction of Moscow. With over 70% of the Ukrainian population identifying as Orthodox Christians, the institutional church has significant sway in the nation’s public opinion.
After the split in 2018, roughly half of the parishes aligned with the newly independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine and half aligned with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which remained associated with Moscow until the war. After the invasion, they broke from the Moscow church as well.
The Orthodox Church is a major spiritual and culture-shaping institution with churches throughout the region. Putin has a direct and close relationship with Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, but he lacks any influence over the now-independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine. This, no doubt, was part of the calculus behind Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, sensing a need to strike while Russia still had residual influence. This too, will fade over time as Ukrainian national institutions replace those of “Mother Russia.”
The creation of a new Orthodox Church in Kyiv also sent a powerful spiritual message that Ukraine was no longer under Russian spiritual direction, but truly independent. This was a major blow to Putin’s worldview of a “Russian world” that included Ukraine.
To add to Putin’s frustrations, Ukrainians made up 40% of the membership of the Russian Orthodox Church. Part of Putin’s strategy to re-establish Russian influence across the former Soviet Union is to establish the Russian Orthodox Church as the leading church for Orthodoxy among the 16 autonomous Orthodox Churches. Putin is challenging the historical leadership role of the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople. The prospect of losing 40% of the membership of the Russian church is a significant blow to his ambition.
In an effort to bolster Russia’s place in the minds of the Orthodox faithful, Putin casts himself as the defender of Christendom and traditional values, but Ukraine wants to be a part of the West where people determine their own way forward by searching for their own spirituality. Free people do not want to be dictated to by an authoritarian state. Freedom of belief is a bedrock principle for free people. It is an existential threat to a dictator.
Notably, Russia is a regular on the State Department’s “Country of Particular Concern” list, which signifies they persecute religious people for their beliefs. Russian conduct in the Ukrainian war zone has been no exception to these practices with regular reports of the Russian military torturing pastors and closing churches, especially targeting evangelicals.
With an active war going on in Ukraine, there have been charges of spying directed at some priests who in the past had been associated with the Russian church. This has led to arrests and counter-charges against Ukrainian authorities of religious persecution. There is no religious freedom protection for aiding an invading army in their conquest of another country. These accusations will ultimately be resolved in a court, as they should be, but it is important to know that both branches of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine support the fight to defend their country.
The thought of a free society on his doorstep is terrifying to a dictator like Putin. Russia and Ukraine share a 1,400-mile-long border. Putin wants strategic depth between himself and the free world. Authoritarians want to dictate the way forward for society, not have to persuade or lead by example. Freedom threatens their power.
The United States and the entire freedom-loving world should support Ukraine in the fight for its independence from Putin’s autocratic “Russian world.” In the War on Faith, this is a major front as opposing sides battle over allowing people to freely decide how they want to live out their religious beliefs.
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Sam Brownback is a former U.S. senator and governor of Kansas. He served as the United States Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom from 2018 to 2021 and chairs the National Council for Religious Freedom. He is also a Senior Fellow at Global Christian Relief.
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