Georgia is backsliding toward Russia’s sphere of influence.
Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv leading a Christmas Eve prayer service at the St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine, 24 December 2023.
EPA-EFE/Oleg Petrasyuk
Chris Hann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
The Orthodox church has sought to distance itself from Russia, but changing the calendar means abandoning a principle that survived decades of Soviet repression.
Russian riot police detain gay rights activists during World Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia in St. Petersburg in 2019.
Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images
Far-right American Christians once viewed Soviet culture as a menace to their values. Today, some authoritarian-leaning admirers wish their country were more like Putin’s Russia.
The roof-capped cross standing on Evgeny Prigozhin’s stone bears a stark resemblance to those found in Old Believer cemeteries, golubets,
Olga Maltseva/AFP
Denys Brylov, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
A scholar in religious studies delves into the peculiar world of Rodnovery, a Russian neo-pagan movement that believes in Slavs’ civilising mission. Many in Wagner side with it.
Pope Francis with Vladimir Putin in 2019: the Pope has angered Ukrainians with a speech that seems to back Putin’s idea of a ‘glorious Russian empire’.
EPA-EFE/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin/Sputnik POOL
Francis I’s message seemed to unwittingly echo some of Vladimir Putin’s historical justifications for invading Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, hands a bunch of flowers to Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill during a ceremony presenting him the Order of St. Andrew in the Kremlin in Moscow in November 2021. Both men have accused the West of trying to impose LGBTQ+ rights on Russia.
(Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
The Russian state, in tandem with the Russian Orthodox Church, is using LGBTQ+ rights as a red-button issue to win support for its criminal war campaign in Ukraine.
Pope Francis on his three-day trip to Kazakhstan in September 2022.
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko
Christianity is the second-largest religion in Kazakhstan, with 26% of the population practicing the faith. But many Christians, especially in the smaller denominations, have experienced persecution.
Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, center, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, right, at the consecration of the Cathedral of Russian Armed Forces outside Moscow, June 14, 2020.
Oleg Varov, Russian Orthodox Church Press Service via AP
World War II has a central place in Russian nationalism. Its importance is written all over a new cathedral dedicated to the armed forces.
A Ukrainian service member takes a photograph of a damaged church after shelling in a residential district in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 10, 2022.
AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
The war in Ukraine is just the latest chapter in a long, tangled relationship between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Patriarch of Russia Kirill and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (in background), at a monastery outside Moscow in 2017.
Alexey Nikolsky/AFP via Getty Images
The war in Ukraine has an important faith dimension, because Christians on both sides share thousands of years of religious history.
Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, center, attends a ceremony consecrating the Cathedral of Russian Armed Forces outside Moscow.
Andrey Rusov, Defense Ministry Press Service via AP
To understand Russia’s war in Ukraine, look to the blend of religious and militaristic nationalism under Putin – on full display in the Church of the Russian Armed Forces.
An Orthodox priest takes part in a rally in protest against an official visit of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople to Kyiv in August 2021.
Anna Marchenko\TASS via Getty Images
The current split in Ukrainian Orthodoxy reflects a fundamental question: Are Ukrainians and Russians one people or two separate nations?
Ilya Glazunov’s painting Eternal Russia (Glazunov Museum, Moscow) expresses ideas dear to contemporary propagators of cosmism, notably the alliance of Soviet modernity and the traditional values of the Russian empire.
Wikipédia
Cosmism, a theory that blends faith in science with religious traditionalism, serves as a source of inspiration for conservative Russian ideologues in search of a national idea.
Metropolitan Epiphanius, head of the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is newly independent of the Russian Orthodox Church.
AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
Ukraine’s Orthodox Church recently broke off from Russia. This dispute has a history that goes back to medieval Christianity, and continues to shape modern-day politics.