Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports on the growing international pressure on the Russian Orthodox Church for its support of the brutal invasion of Ukraine. Excerpt:
In Ukraine, where Russia’s all-out war stands at 30 months and counting, Kyiv’s move against a branch of the Orthodox Church seen as loyal to Moscow was yet another watershed moment in a decades-long struggle to define Ukraine’s Orthodox identity. Some saw it, or outright misconstrued it, as an attack on religious freedom.
But in a growing number of other countries, the Russian church is finding it difficult to continue its operations as more authorities turn a critical eye toward its presence — under the argument that rather than being an exclusively religious, spiritual organization, it is instead an active tool of Russian government soft power.
“It has never been a secret that Russia uses the church and Orthodox values as a significant part of its foreign policy,” said Vladimir Liparteliani, a scholar at Durham University in Britain who has researched the Russian Orthodox Church, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation ROC.
“When a state bans and restricts the influence of the ROC, it is essentially trying to reduce the impact of Russian soft power,” he said. “Moreover, for many European states, it is critically important to address this issue because Russian religious and conservative narratives are highly anti-Western and anti-liberal, and their danger should not be underestimated.”
Glory to Ukraine!
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