The Russian Orthodox Church and its leader, Patriarch Kirill (Vladimir Gundyaev), are actively involved in the informational support of Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine.
On March 27, the so-called assembly of the organization "World Russian People's Council" approved a "decree" with the eloquent title "The Present and Future of the Russian World."
In the document, the so-called Special Military Operation is declared a "holy war" and a "defense" against the West, which has "fallen into Satanism."
The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security explains what this "decree" means.
The position of the WRPC may be considered de facto the position of the Russian Orthodox Church , as both organizations are led by Patriarch Kirill, and senior hierarchs of the ROC are part of the leadership of the WRPC. The WRPC is registered at the address of the Danilov Monastery of the ROC in Moscow, and the "decree" of the WRPC is published on the official website of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Thus, the Moscow Patriarchate has clearly demonstrated that the ROC and other structures under its control:
• Utilize their available resources to justify aggression against Ukraine and prepare for aggression against other states, justifying and supporting the Kremlin's territorial ambitions.
• By providing ideological justification for aggression, they do everything possible to mobilize Russian society for the conduct of the Russian-Ukrainian war and other aggressive wars in the future.
As for the rhetoric of the "decree," it:
• Pits Russians against the rest of the world and calls for confrontation with it in the form of a "besieged fortress," characteristic of fundamentalist totalitarian sects.
• Is overtly genocidal: the authors of the document do not recognize the rights of Ukrainians to their own identity and state, openly calling for its destruction.
Thus, the ROC acts not as a church, but as a structural unit of the Russian government and a co-aggressor in the aggressive war against Ukraine. The ROC operates as a network structure: propaganda is carried out not only by information structures under its control (press services, TV channels, websites), but also at the level of individual parishes and ideological indoctrination of individuals.
The rhetoric of the Moscow Patriarchate is part of a propaganda campaign aimed at justifying, rationalizing war and genocide, and maximizing the mobilization of Russian society. At least that part of society that identifies with Russian Orthodoxy.
