How Moscow patriarch transformed love thy neighbour into kill thy neighbour

I learned to pray when I was 10. In a tiny one-room gostinka apartment on the outskirts of Kyiv where we lived, there was no way around but to hear my mom begin and end her days with these mysterious words: “Our Heavenly Father…”

So, when she told me that I was big enough now and it was time for me to learn how to pray, it turned out that, to her surprise, I already knew all of my mom’s prayers.

It was the time of Soviet Union. Not the easiest for believers. Yet, even back then, the churches in Ukraine were full.

There were two Christian denominations, more or less tolerated by the state: the Russian Orthodox (tolerated more) and the Roman Catholic (tolerated less). Ukraine, with its unbreakable parishes, was the bastion for both.

A lot of things have changed ever since. The Soviet Union fell apart. Ukraine went independent – and so did (not without drama, of course) its church.

Instead of one official denomination, there came many more, mostly evangelical.

Ukraine became a welcoming home for them all.

But the most important change was, of course, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

War is the worst time for a believer.

You see innocent people die in bombardments.

You see your country’s best give their life on the front line. You see once-flourishing cities razed to the ground. You see the mind-boggling cruelty of the occupiers. You see your mom and dad, both in their 80s, pray under missiles.

Every night becomes a death lottery – whose home will be hit next? Who will wake up tomorrow and who will not?

And then you ask the question every believer has probably asked at one or another point in their life: “Father, where are you? How do you allow it?”

Intellectually, you understand that it’s a moment of weakness and a test of your faith, maybe inevitable in a time of hardship, but spiritually? Spiritually, there are moments where all you can do is cry. And once you’ve done that, you pray again and you do your dues to help your country fight.

Because when faced with evil of this magnitude, there are only three noble things one can do: pray, help and fight.

So much suffering, so much injustice, so much infernal inhumanity – day after day, month after month, year after year – sometimes it appears humanly impossible to process. Especially for those on the front line.

Yet, the horror doesn’t end there. Another atrocity of war was how the word of Christ was used to create it.

The shocking truth is, without active, passionate participation of the church, this war wouldn’t be possible.

It was the Moscow orthodox patriarchy that transformed “Love thy neighbour” into “Kill thy neighbour, he deserves it, it’s God’s punishment”.

When visiting Ukraine in 2010, the Moscow patriarch, Kirill, famously called Kyiv “our Jerusalem”.

Meaning the spiritual role of Ukraine’s capital as the birthplace of Christianity in this part of Europe.

What he forgot to mention, though, was that a decade later he personally would co-create a bloody religious crusade, a holy war and treat Ukrainians like Saracens, to be ousted and destroyed.

Apparently, history does have a tendency to rhyme.

There are dozens of thousands of priests in Russia. Sadly, only a handful have had the courage to stand up and not become culprits to the kill-thyneighbour war.

Intellectually, you understand there is nothing new to it; for centuries, the clergy allowed itself to be used in the most horrible things humans did. Emotionally you can’t help but ask: “Father, why do you allow using your name to conduct this war?”

And spiritually you pray. Pray that this darkness doesn’t devour your home, your people, your faith.

Pray that God gives justice to those who started it, blessed it, or simply looked away.

But most of all, pray that the world finally hears the commandment as it was given by God, and not as Moscow patriarchy rewrote it.

The faithful of the world can’t look away as “Kill thy neighbour” becomes the theme of the 21st century.