Russian Church and Ukrainian War

Abstract

The war in Ukraine that began in February 2014 and escalated in February 2022 to the extent unseen in Europe since the World War II, cannot be adequately comprehended without taking into consideration its religious dimension. This article explores the evolution of the “Russian world” ideology, which the leaders and speakers of the Russian Orthodox Church render in quasi-theological terms. It explains why the Russian patriarch Kirill decided to back it and turned it from an elitist to mass ideologeme. These explanations are given in the sociological framework of the public space, social contract, and civil religion. The main argument of the article is that the church wanted to regain for itself a central place in the Russian public square after the decades of exile from it under the Communist regime. In result of supporting the war, however, the church is endangered to be marginalised in this square again.