Since the 1990s, the future patriarch of Moscow looked to Ratzinger as a reference point for a possible Orthodox-Catholic alliance. However, history has shown how baseless these dreams were. The meek and profound pope has long prepared us to face the true Apocalypse, and his prophecy is even more valid today than yesterday.
In the thirty-year post-Soviet period, Christmas had split into two, accepting 25 December of the Gregorian calendar, without conflict with 7 January of the Julian calendar of the Orthodox Church. With the war, Christians return to quarelling over the dates of the liturgical calendar, evoking how the first schism in the 2nd century was overcome thanks to Irenaeus, a saint from Asia who went to preach in Gaul, inaugurating the meeting of souls and the great currents of Christian spirituality.
The war in Ukraine shows how propaganda is back with a vengeance, the latest incarnation of a something that goes from Mayakovski’s poems to today's influencers. It reflects a dilemma best embodied by Dostoevsky when he wrote: “Even if someone were to prove to me that the truth lay outside Christ, I should choose to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.”
Composed of life time expatriots and recent fugitives, the Russian diaspora presents a variegated and fractured picture, even if it is rich in leading figures from the world of culture, politics and economics. Moreover, division is a classic characteristic not only of Russian politics abroad, but also of its religiosity and church structures, as revealed by the Russian-Ukrainian war.
When he refers to the cruelty associated with the aggression against Ukraine raising questions about some ethnic minorities, the pope uses with great precision the keys to interpreting aspects of the Russian world, namely Russia, the Russian state, and non-Russian ethnic groups, three different parts of a single and complex reality.
Whether they unconditionally support militant patriotism, are only hoping for the end of the nightmare, or timidly trying to oppose it by risking imprisonment in a lager and expulsion from all form of social life, all Russians look to the future with a sense of bewilderment and uncertainty, anger and guilt, frustration and the horror of emptiness.
Ukrainians must not seek “revenge against the Russians”, but rather the triumph of a democratic society, inspiring not the imposition of their own system, but opt for a real interaction between civilisations, something that is in short supply at present.
After the withdrawal from Kherson, the war on the ground would appear an entrenched standoff between the two banks of the Dnepr, returning to a condition similar to that experienced in 1480 in the so-called 'Confrontation on the Ugra'. At that time, the two forces of East and West chose not to continue the fight, instigating a period of revival in Russia to the point of its dream of becoming the 'third Rome'.
As they celebrate the ominous 17th century on 4 November, Russians find reasons to continue their great defensive war, now effectively mired in the late autumn mud of the annexed territories. Instead of selecting events from a past of imperial glory, it would be better not to suppress another symbolically charged date, 30 October, the day dedicated to the memory of Soviet dissidents, now wiped away by government order.
The Russian 'tsar' speaks of a 'defensive' and salvific war to build a new world led by Russia. Moscow sees itself as the 'true West', the one of traditions. To survive, the Russian president hopes for favourable political changes in Europe and the US.
Eight months after the start of the war, with winter looming, what are the ways out of a possible apocalyptic scenario? To stop the madness as Pope Francis has repeatedly pleaded would require looking to the present and the future rather than the past. Although unlikely, a victory by one of two sides can only guarantee permanent divisions. Instead, we should throw off hypocritical masks and put on the table what we really want.
The great Russian writer Viktor Erofeev likened the president - with his resentments and war manias - to 'a street thug' seeking to retake the world and vengence all the humiliations suffered. 'Russophobia' is one of the main motivations for Putin's war, but the problem is that it is not a sentiment peculiar to opponents, but a part of the 'Russian soul' itself
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Belarusian Ales Bialiatsky, Russia’s Memorial movement, and Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties to honour their worldview, which radically differs from the exaltation of the “sovereign" identities that led to war. The only answer to any “hegemony” lies with the defence of freedom, peoples, and individuals.
Amid sporadic protest and resistance , resignation seems to predominate in Russia today. Russians are afraid of losing Putin because they do not know what may await them next. Kirill's opacity and Orthodox theologian Georgij Kočetkov's prophecy: "Let each of us learn to live in Christ, so that we are not ashamed of our faith and our lives... We must seek the way of service to God and neighbor, even if there is an enemy before you."
The "religion of fire" has devastated and destroyed hundreds of churches, while Kirill has announced a new plan to restore buildings destroyed by bombs, he prayed for.
The death of Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth, the Pope in Central Asia, the war in the Caucasus and the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Xi Jinping's trip: all events that evoke the end of a era, to make way for a world as yet to be described.
Without “foreign agents” Russia would not be Russia, starting with the metropolitans sent by Constantinople to Christianise Kievan Rus'. Perhaps no country can truly be itself without influences from near and far.
Opening up to religious freedom was not part of the initial reform programme. It was the events following the Černobyl disaster that forced the secretary-president to change his attitude to the point of reaching the harmony he established with John Paul II. But the Russians blamed him for the end of the USSR and renunciation of its role as a world power.
Fear that some voices in the Orthodox world in Nur-Sultan would launch accusations of "philetism," also weighed on unwillingness to meet in Kazakhstan. But Russian culture and tradition are a universal heritage of Christendom. And when the bombs are silenced (hopefully sooner than later ) and rebuilding begins, the embrace between Francis and Kirill will be more necessary than ever.
In two recent speeches President Putin and Moscow Patriarch Kirill speak again of the war not just against Ukraine but the entire West, with its model of society that places "absolute value on individual choice." A political, moral and spiritual challenge.
In Russia, Western sanctions are starting to bite. Putin and his acolytes have de facto privatised the country, and consider it their property. The ongoing transformation is falling on the majority of the population, deprived of any say in the matter.
Following in the footsteps of John Paul II, Francis is set visit the former Soviet republic from 13 to 15 September to take part in the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions. His agenda includes a meeting with Kazakh President Tokayev while a second tête-à-tête with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill is a real possibility.
A moral counter-revolution, as some Russian media call it, is the global and declared aim of the war in Ukraine; for this reason, it has touched a sensitive nerve in the West, much more than the geographical proximity between NATO forces and those of neo-Soviet Russia.
Exactly one hundred years ago more than 300 distinguished representatives of the scientific, literary and artistic intelligentsia were expelled from Soviet Russia to Germany.They saved Russian culture from erasure. Even today because of the "Ukrainian revolution" thousands of teachers, artists and scholars from various fields have fled the country. Will they be able to do the same?
More than war, prison camps and food, what has revived Moscow's past is the unbearable illusion of moral and religious superiority, one that seeks to celebrate the ability of Russians to unite in solidarity and support for the country's leaders, proclaiming the end of libertarian individualism that ruined the souls of depraved Westerners.
The great ideal of peace is anchored to unquestionable values such as the absolute dignity of human beings, the superiority of international law, and even mutual economic dependence. Yet we find ourselves once again discussing the principles that have always incited the powerful to war: the affirmation of one's national and cultural identity, the defence of one's territorial and political interests, and the rejection of economic dependence on international potentates.
Moscow today is complaining that its culture is being ostracised. Yet as early as during Kyivan Rus’, the Russians have removed any reference to the “Mother Church” in Byzantium, already victim of an ancient “cancel culture”. East and West, Russia, America and Europe, are all united by the self-destructive madness of “rewriting history”, and the ongoing war is nothing more than everyone punishing everyone else.
The countries with which Russia feels itself at odds today are not "enemies," but "unfriendly" countries. The theses of Vladimir Solov'ev, who at the threshold of the 20th century recalled the "feminine nature" of Russia to ponder the depths of this definition. In this perspective, war is a reaction that affirms the injustice and masculine violence of a West that lives for itself and does not honor its bride's capacity for sacrifice, her desire to generate a new world.
Why does the Moscow Patriarchate strongly support aggression against Ukraine rather than peace? Its ambiguities are already found in the “Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church”, adopted in 2000. Kirill would like to mark military victory with the reunification of all Russians, but so far all he has seen is the loss of many parts of a Church that would like to become universal.
Max Scheler argued that the best demonstration of the Russian culture of resentment are the 'humiliated and offended' heroes of Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Today, the Russians think they have done their part after the end of the Cold War, while 'the others' have taken advantage of it. This anger has exploded in Ukraine, showing the whole world how little has been understood about a people not only proud of their traditions, but able to expose the hypocrisies and weaknesses of others.
