Holy war

How Russia is waging Holy War in Ukraine

32 min listen

On the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dr Yuri Stoyanov – of SOAS university in London – joins Damian Thompson to reflect on the religious dimensions of the war once again. The theological gulf between Russia and Ukraine is perhaps comparable to the political one and, for now, seems insurmountable, with the war increasingly being framed in some spheres as a ‘Holy War’. You have to stretch back to the First World War to find a war within Christendom framed in these terms, but what effect is this having on the family of Orthodox churches across Europe and the Middle East? And how can we better understand

Holy War and Antichrist: The rise of extremist rhetoric inside the Russian Orthodox Church

35 min listen

The subject of Ukraine shattered the unity of Eastern Orthodoxy long before Russia’s full-scale invasion began. In 2018 the Ukrainian Orthodox Church declared independence from Moscow with the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. In response, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow broke off all relations with Constantinople, creating arguably the greatest schism in Orthodoxy for 1,000 years. There are now two main Ukrainian Orthodox Churches: one that supports independence and one still loyal to Moscow. As The Spectator’s Ukraine correspondent Svitlana Morenets points out, Ukrainians who previously didn’t care which church they attended now have to decide which to attend. Meanwhile, Dr Yuri Stoyanov, a fellow at SOAS, describes the alarming