Patriarch Kirill and the “Theology of War”

Ajouté : 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Orthodox activists from the United States, Siluan Wright and Panagotis Mris have published a book analyzing the religious teachings of Moscow patriarch Kiril Gundayv. This is reported by religious studies scholar Larara Ferman in Nova Gazetta Europe. The Putin era in Russia coincides with what may be the most scandalous patriarch in Russian history embodied by Kirill Gondayv. What appears to be the most comprehensive analysis to date of his specific teachings and views is now publicly available. The book The Heresy of Patriarch Kirill by Siluan Wright and Panagotis Mris. According to Ferman, the authors have gathered with remarkable precision all available evidence showing the incompatibility of patriarch's teachings with Orthodoxy and Christianity. More broadly, using the official resources of the Russian Orthodox Church itself. In response, they cite the Bible, church cannons, the writings of saints, and other authoritative sources on the subject.

[00:00:58]Wright and MRI begin their book with a traditional critique of the Moscow patriarch, voiced by the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia and the Orthodox underground in the USSR. Its key point is known as the heresy of Sergianism. Named after the first head of the Russian Orthodox Church, recreated in 1943 by Stalin's Will, Metropolitan Sergius Stragarodsky, whom the ROC recognizes as patriarch.

[00:01:25]Sergius's actions became the prototype for the ROC's modern practices. The author of the article writes that patriarch emphasizes his ideological connection to the Stalin era patriarch, calling him a confessor who worthily carried his cross. She also recalls that for 20 years before becoming patriarch beginning in 1989, Kroll headed the Moscow Patriarchets Department for external church relations created in 1946 on Lenti barriers initiative.

[00:01:55]According to many former employees, the department was fully staffed by KGB agents, mainly from the first chief directorate, the foreign intelligence branch. The theology of the special military operation is the apotheiois of Sergeianism. The ROC and Kirill personally had long been moving toward the theological fusion of the army and the church. All that was missing, to use the patriarch's own language, was an energetic shock strong enough to erase the boundary between them. That shock came with the attack on Ukraine, declared a holy war that opens the path to paradise for all who enlist in the Russian armed forces and give their lives for Putin's denatification. The authors write. They cite a large body of petristic quotations refuting another of Kirill's doctrines that death in the special military operation automatically washes away all sins effectively turning a dead convict or vagna fighter into a saint. According to Lra Ferman, the word heresy sounds too academic and if anything too neutral are to describe what the ROC patriarch is preaching. His views can be examined theologically and compared with the teachings of the Bible and the saints as the authors of the heresy of patriarch Kir meticulously do.

[00:03:11]But the living human heart upon hearing the familiar metallic tone of Kir's voice calling for endless war, hatred, and bloodshed instinctively flees from him as described in the gospel parable of the good shepherd. The religion of the special military operation is sustained only by fear and coercive force. She emphasizes