, “Russian World” Theology, and the Role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Putin Regime’s War of Occupation

Vasile Ernu

Many years ago I worked on The Problem of Evil in Russian Thought, and later on Eschatology in Russian Politics. These were themes of the 1990s. By 2000 I had completely broken away from these areas. Books from that era ended up somewhere on the bottom shelf on the back row. Yet, it’s true that I always peeked at the subject.

These days we’ve been discussing a lot on the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in shaping the architecture of the Putin regime and especially its role in the military issue and the regime’s war of occupation in Ukraine. I had to reopen closed doors, and tried to clarify the situation a bit. Let’s take it one step at a time.

Beginnings

With the coming to power of the Bolshevik Soviet regime, a numer of well known...