Blame it on the Emperor Constantine

Church historian Diana Butler Bass makes a convincing case that Putin's war is a religious war.

Make no mistake: the war in Ukraine can rightly be seen as a religious war, a specifically Christian — even Orthodox Christian — one. Eastern Europe is an outlier in what was once Christendom. For in the east, Christianity is not in decline but is growing with both Russia and Ukraine showing sharp increases of those who embrace Orthodox Christianity. Unlike in western Europe, religion is flourishing and the church matters greatly in these countries. 

... Indeed, in Eastern Europe, you can’t really separate “church” and “state” or “faith” and “nation” in the same way western Europeans and North Americans do. The further east in Europe one travels, the more one experiences church and state as part of the same mystical cloth of meaning, a single cloak of community and destiny. This is how it has been for more than a thousand years — and no one should expect it to change any time soon. 

Christians may say, “Well, that’s not Christianity. Putin isn’t really a Christian. He’s using Christianity for nationalism.” But being personally religious isn’t the point in Orthodoxy — the point is being part of a people bound through a tradition blessed by divine favor. One’s feelings or depth of faith or piety has nothing to do with it. Indeed, history is replete with examples of emperors, strongmen, and rulers who prayed (perhaps less than authentically) at an altar as the vicar of their people, and then rose from their knees to unleash all the demons of Hell on the earth. It is an old story, one that dates back to the Emperor Constantine himself. Perhaps is isn’t “really” Christianity, but church history says differently. Christians are practiced at it.

She goes on to analyze the divergence between the Russian Orthodox polity with its seat in Moscow and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church located in Kiev. The Russian Patriarch is all in for Putin's invasion; he views the Ukrainian Church as an illegitimate breakaway from his proper domain. The Ukrainian branch of Orthodoxy seems more ready to coexist within a more multi-faceted national culture -- one which can live with a Jew as the legitimate president of an Orthodox nation.

Bass' thoughts on this are fascinating, expansive, and appropriately tentative. There's much here.

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St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Church in San Francisco

Meanwhile here on the homefront, it seems appropriate to ask with Molly Olmstead, Can the Christian Right Quit Putin? Until recently, many white nationalist evangelicals were Putin fans.

... The managing director of World Congress of Families, an international organization crusading for the values of the Christian right, has called Russia “the hope for the world right now.” The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association featured Putin on the cover of the March 2014 issue of its magazine. (Franklin Graham has also met with Putin and has “exchanged views on Russia-US cooperation” and “discussed issues related to traditional family values” with other Russian officials. 

And then, of course, there was Donald Trump, eager to praise Putin as a strong leader and potential ally. 

... [Andrew] Whitehead, [author of the book Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States,] described the stance of Putin-loving Christians in the U.S. as: “‘If we can have a strongman protect our cultural heritage and values, that’s what we want” because “we want a fighter.’”

Olmstead reports that many religious right leaders are now backpedaling. Are they waiting for a cue from their Orange Emperor --- who seems to remain a Putin fan? Time will tell.