Russian Orthodox Church as Apologist for the Current Russian Aggression

Abstract

The article analyzes the criminal character of the Russian Orthodox Church as an apologist for Russian imperial aggression. The concept of canonical territory is the ideological basis for the intervention of the Russian Orthodox Church in the internal affairs of independent states. Historically, the creation and growth of the network of the Russian Orthodox Church structures on its territory took place by illegal means, and the concept of canonical territory as a political trend was introduced in 1989 as a means of maintaining its own dominance in the post-Soviet states. The concept of “canonical territory” in the interpretation of the Russian Orthodox Church is a political-ideological construct of neo-colonial, imperial, and revanchist content, intended to identify the part of the world planned to be taken under target control by specific means of influence. There was a targeted transformation of the classical idiom “the territory of the state for the canonical church” into the imperial ideology of “the state as the canonical territory of the church,” which serves as a basis for the Russian Orthodox Church interfering in the internal affairs of subjects of international law. The foreign policy activity of the Russian Orthodox Church is based on the expansionist ideology of the “Russian world,” aimed at establishing its own hegemony over potential objects of influence, of which Ukraine traditionally appears as the main direction for imperial expansion. The liquidation of Ukrainian statehood was accompanied at the same time by the capture and leveling of its Christian identity: canonical affiliation, church infrastructure, and national and cultural identity. As an independent Ukraine developed, it was natural that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church acquired the status of a local autocephalous church, corresponding to the current church, international law, and its national interests. Under present conditions, the Russian Orthodox Church is a direct participant in the Russian-Ukrainian full-scale war, and the levels of such participation are diverse: organizational (the blessing of criminal activity and support of the Russian occupation forces and various terrorist organizations), repressive (banning religious freedoms in the occupied territories), material (raiding, seizing, and appropriating church property and territories), and psychological (creating an atmosphere of fear and social tension).