The Russian Orthodox Church is supposed to bring people closer to God, not to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
And yet, that seems to be just what the ROC is doing under Patriarch Kirill. The leader of a church with as many as 160 million adherents has declared Russia’s fight to conquer Ukraine to be a “holy war.” It is not the most Christian of messages, and it is a belief that must be challenged in any way possible.
Conservatives in America should not be fooled: Russia does not share their values, and in many instances acts in complete disrespect of them. It is exploiting them to influence U.S. policy toward the Kremlin’s interests.
Since February 2022’s full-scale invasion, the ROC has been one of Putin’s most vocal supporters, attempting to cast a sanctifying shadow over Moscow’s senseless invasion. The Church’s influence does not stop at Russia’s border. It has like-minded friends around the world, especially in the former Soviet space.
Historically, Ukraine’s branch of the Orthodox Church took its lead from Moscow. It was only in 2018, amid escalating geopolitical tensions between the two countries, that the two officially split, with the de facto global leader of the Orthodox Church, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew, granting autonomy to the newly formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In response, the ROC severed ties with Bartholomew, with Putin calling the decision a “political maneuver” warranting “the most serious of consequences.”
Despite the formation of the OCU, Kirill’s influence lives on in a large rump organization, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. While the UOC renounced its ties to Moscow following the full-scale invasion and has seen thousands of parishes transfer to the OCU, the organization has continued to serve as a mouthpiece for Putin’s malicious propaganda. Since February 2022, Ukraine’s security services have launched 174 criminal proceedings against UOC clergy for crimes ranging from “justification of aggression to assistance to the Russian Federation” to “propaganda of totalitarian ideas.”
In response, Ukraine has exposed churches in the country for their continued affiliation with the ROC, attempting to cut off their harmful influence and protect national security. On July 3, Ukraine revoked the Ukrainian citizenship of Metropolitan Onufriy, the head of the UOC and its 8,000 parishes, for concealing his illegal dual Ukrainian-Russian citizenship.
In retaliation, Moscow has launched a disinformation campaign painting Ukraine as a persecutor of religious freedom, with popular Russian media outlet TASS calling the OCU a “temporary gasket” in the Roman Catholic Church’s attempts to “subordinate” the ROC.
Unfortunately, some U.S. policymakers are taking Putin’s bait, adding legitimacy to his deceitful manipulation. In response to Onufriy’s revoked citizenship, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) posted on X, “I CAN PROMISE THERE WILL BE NO WEAPONS FUNDING FOR YOU.”
Luna’s response demonstrates how imperative it is that Washington recognize this for the influence operation it is. This implanting of disinformation and confusion is one of the Kremlin’s key tools to influence decision-making and to sow chaos between friends and foes alike.
Since its invasion of Ukraine began, the Kremlin has justified its actions by portraying them as a defense against religious persecution. Just before the 2022 attack, Putin argued Russia had to prevent the “destruction” of the pro-Russia faction of the UOC. When Putin’s troops marched across the border in 2022, he accused Ukrainians of being “neo-Nazis,” determined to destroy traditional Russian identity.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has emphasized how “Russia will not leave the Orthodox people of Ukraine in trouble and will ensure … canonical Orthodoxy regains its central place in the spiritual life” of Ukraine. Kirill has blessed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, claiming Russia is “defending the single spiritual space of Holy Rus” to “protect the [Russian] world” from the West’s “satanism.”
Unfortunately, Luna is not the only American conservative to be fooled by Russia’s disinformation campaign. In a viral interview between conservative media mogul Tucker Carlson and Bob Amsterdam, an American attorney who has defended the Kremlin’s interests for decades, the two parroted the Kremlin line by comparing Ukraine’s treatment of the UOC to the Nazi’s persecution of Jews.
Vice President JD Vance has accused Zelensky of religious persecution against the UOC, citing “news reports of priests being investigated, church assets being seized, and priests being arrested.” He even went so far as to say Zelensky was conducting an “assault on traditional Christian communities.”
Putin’s campaign of lies has influenced U.S. policy. Vance has advocated withholding and using U.S. aid to Ukraine as “leverage to ensure and guarantee real religious freedom.” With Vance’s endorsement, conservative Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) launched a bill to block aid to Ukraine based on Ukraine’s “war against Christianity.” They went as far as justifying Russia’s invasion as “protecting” Christianity. The bill flopped, but these efforts demonstrate how the Kremlin’s disinformation has penetrated the conservative political mind.
The Trump administration has latched on to Putin’s rhetoric, as it aligns with its agenda for protecting Christian traditional values and Christianity around the world. On July 3, Russian news outlet RT reported that President Donald Trump spoke with Putin about “exchanging movies that promote traditional values close to Russia and to Trump’s admin[istration].”
Those “traditional values” can be scarce in Putin and Kirill’s Russia.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has called Russia “one of the worst violators of their people’s religious freedom.” The ROC is deeply corrupt, providing Patriarch Kirill with $30,000 watches and sprawling properties. And while the Kremlin portrays Russia as a pillar of traditional, moral, and spiritual values, only 9% of Russians attend church even somewhat regularly.
On other issues that are central to the Trump agenda, such as traditional “family” values and abortion restrictions, Russia is also hardly a model. Despite the ROC’s staunch pro-life stance, Russia has one of the highest abortion rates in the world. Divorce rates exceed those of the European Union.
Despite this, the Kremlin has exploited the ROC’s influence to disseminate propaganda furthering its military and intelligence objectives throughout post-Soviet spaces where Putin otherwise lacks clout. A 2022 survey found more than 65% of Russians trust the ROC, making it a powerful tool.
The European Parliament has exposed how “Russia builds links within” Orthodox countries through Kremlin-coordinated church activities. In the West, Russia has formed alliances with sympathetic religious institutions, such as the World Congress of Families, which connects European Christian organizations and U.S. evangelical groups.
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The church’s efforts have caught the attention of the U.S. government, causing the FBI to warn members of the Orthodox community that Russia is using the ROC to recruit intelligence sources.
The United States must expose the Kremlin’s claims about religious persecution as hypocritical lies and show that Putin’s war in Ukraine is no “holy war” but rather a self-interested pursuit of his illegal, expansionist, and vehemently anti-Western agenda.
Emily Hester is a research analyst with FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation. Dr. Ivana Stradner serves as a research fellow with the Barish Center for Media Integrity at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).