Putin and the power of the Orthodox church

In April this year, a sombre looking Vladimir Putin attended a midnight Orthodox Easter Service in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral. Holding a lit red candle, the Russian President crossed himself several times during the ceremony, known as the Divine Liturgy. When Father Kirill declared ‘Christ has risen’, Putin duly responded with the congregation: ‘Truly he is risen’.

It was a year after the brutal invasion of Ukraine, but the Russian leader and Father Kirill showed no remorse or compassion for the suffering caused by the war. In fact, Putin and the Kremlin has exploited the support of the Orthodox Church in an attempt to give his actions a spurious philosophical and cultural ‘justification’.

Long before the war, Russian Orthodox priests would call during prayers for the Kremlin to restore ‘Holy Rus’ – the name for the cradle of the ancient Russian empire founded centuries before in Kiev which united Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.