There are religious dimensions to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, or at least Putin is trying to give the invasion a religious dimension, with the help of a Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
This Patriarch is one reason Russia is so feared in the area of cyberwar. The Patriarch personally visited the office where Russia keeps its computers and sprinkled holy water on everything to make them stronger. The use of holy water on computers is more common than you might think. When Romania needed to protect its computers, their priest did something similar, except that he used a paint roller with a long handle to get everything good and coated, since some of the screens were mounted high on the wall.
Beneath the gold onion domes of the Danilov Monastery a few miles south of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin’s chief shaman explains why Russia is hell-bent on destroying Ukraine.
“If we see [Ukraine] as a threat, we have the right to use force to ensure the threat is eradicated,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill recently preached to his church’s 90 million faithful followers. “We have entered into a conflict which has not only physical but also metaphysical significance. We are talking about human salvation, something much more important than politics.”
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While Russia has sought to justify its assault on Ukraine with complaints about NATO's eastward expansion, it has also claimed that foreign actors have encroached on its religious turf in Ukraine — even alleging the United States helped instigate an Eastern Orthodox schism there.
Moscow Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said both the West and a rival patriarch were “pursuing the same end” of seeking to weaken Russia and “make the brotherly peoples — Russians and Ukrainians — enemies.”
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He cited the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, who in 2019 formally recognized the independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine — in a country where the Moscow Patriarchate claims jurisdiction. The ecumenical patriarch, based in Turkey, is considered “first among equals" among Orthodox patriarchs but, unlike a pope, doesn't have authority beyond his own territory.
In the world I see, you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty carpool lane of some abandoned superhighway.