<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Friends, family, and colleagues, I am embarrassed that TWICE the OPREE Ukraine theme issue link I sent out has not worked. I have called up the heavy IT artillery (my wife) who has gone to work on the problem. Try this: <span style="font-size:12pt"> </span><a href="http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree" target="_blank"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">http://digitalcommons.</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">georgefox.edu/ree</font><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"> </span></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Mark Elliott</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><br></p><div><p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpFirst" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:normal"><b>Religion as a Weapon in Russia’s
War against Ukraine</b></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:normal"><b>Mark R. Elliott</b><b> </b></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height:normal"> Russia today is a quasi-religious fascist state presuming
legitimacy on the basis of its morally compromised Orthodox Church. That is the
sense of the phrase, “clero-fascist [or clerical-fascist] state” employed by
Father Leonid Kishkovsky, ecumenical officer of the Orthodox Church in America,
upon his return from Moscow following the enthronement of Russian Orthodox
Patriarch Kyrill back in 2009. Paul Mojzes, founding editor of <i>Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern
Europe </i>(<i>OPREE</i>), recalls Father
Leonid’s pained “clero-fashist state” observation in his introduction to<i> OPREE’s</i> just-released theme issue on
Ukraine (vi-vii; <a href="http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)"><span style="color:rgb(17,85,204);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree</span></a><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span>). Isn’t it ironic that 13 years ago a leading
figure of American Orthodoxy would already have perceived his confession’s
support for Putin as a prop for a fascist autocrat who today claims he must rid
Ukraine of non-existent Nazis.</p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height:normal"> In this same <i>OPREE</i>
issue I have been given the opportunity to plumb the depths of Patriarch
Kyrill’s complicity in Putin’s fratricidal, Cain-and-Abel war against Ukraine
(“Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine; What’s Religion Got to Do with It?”). An accompanying
“Chronology of Church-Related Public Protests against Russia’s War on Ukraine” will
require additions almost daily because of the continuing flood of
faith-inspired laments, appeals, and petitions against Putin’s criminal assault
on Ukraine. Isn’t it also ludicrous that a homicidal kleptocrat in the Kremlin,
with a power-obsessed patriarch in tow, poses as protector of Christian values
against a decadent, secularizing West? So to “save” Ukraine from its Western “temptation”
Russia’s military, I argue, “is about the destruction of a democratic,
religiously tolerant state that is home to arguably the most robust Christian
population of any country Europe.” </p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpLast" style="line-height:normal"> Also in this Ukraine theme issue, <i>OPREE</i> co-editor Beth Admiraal points out, “There are other
religious dimensions to this crisis, too many to enumerate adequately in this
space.” She is right, and in time each one she notes should receive its due:</p>
<p class="gmail-MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"">
</span></span>“Religious groups…actively working within and
outside of Ukraine to help citizens who are fleeing Ukraine;”</p>
<p class="gmail-MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"">
</span></span>“faith organizations…leading vigils for peace
and raising funds to support Ukraine;”</p>
<p class="gmail-MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"">
</span></span>“the Jewish faith of Volodymyr Zelensky [which]
has become a part of his patriotism;” </p>
<p class="gmail-MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"">
</span></span>and sadly, “some evangelical leaders in America
[who] have come out in support of Putin’s invasion” (“Religion and Russia’s
Invasion of Ukraine,” xi).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.25in;line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> <i>OPREE</i>
co-editor Admiraal also highlights an article treating a new religious movement
that is frequently the target of state and societal discrimination. In this
instance Jehovah’s Witnesses are the “litmus test for religious freedom in a
given state.” The conclusion of four Ukrainian scholars is that members of this
much-maligned religious minority, “with few exceptions…have been largely
unhindered in practicing their faith in Ukraine” (Admiraal, xi; Roman Bogachev <i>et al</i>., “Activities of the Jehovah’s
Witnesses Organization as a ‘Litmus Test’ for Religious Freedom in Ukraine”).
The authors tellingly contrast Ukrainian tolerance with Russia’s treatment of
Jehovists where they have been banned since 2017 and where over 600 have been
prosecuted for practicing their allegedly “extremist” faith. If anything, in
the Russian puppet states of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine treatment
of Jehovah’s Witnesses—and in fact all non-Moscow Patriarchate believers—religious
discrimination has been worse than in Russia proper. Dr. Admiraal and I agree that
it is ominous to contemplate the level of disregard for freedom of conscience that
will obtain if Donbas-style persecution expands into additional territories
Russia may manage to wrest from Ukraine (Admiraal, xii; Elliott, “Putin’s Invasion,”
40-42). Lord have mercy.</p></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Dr. Mark R. Elliott, Editor Emeritus<br>East-West Church Report<br>Asbury University<br>One Macklem Dr.<br>Wilmore, KY 40390<br>859-858-2427<br><a href="mailto:emark936@gmail.com" target="_blank">emark936@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://www.eastwestreport.org" target="_blank">www.eastwestreport.org</a></div></div></div></div>