Orthodox, Evangelicals, The US Right, and Putin

Since the Russo-Ukraine War started, I've been puzzling over why certain groups have been at best squishy over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. There is apparently something of a schism among Russian Orthodox, the largest Orthodox denomination, since Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has been staunch in his endorsement of the invasion. On the other hand, there's been little intelligent reporting on this, especially on how Russian Orthodox outside Russia have reacted.

In fact, the general tendency in religious reporting has been to elide Orthodox and Evangelicals into a single group along with elements of the US fringe and not-so-fringe Right. Here's a typical take:

While many Russian Orthodox Church priests have condemned Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, a man who once called Putin “a miracle of God,” is firmly in the Russian president’s corner. Kirill is particularly concerned about gay pride parades in Ukraine’s Donbas region. He claims that the war is “far more important than politics,” adding that “if humanity accepts that sin is not a violation of God’s law, if humanity accepts that sin is a variation of human behavior, then human civilization will end there.” Writing at The Bulwark, Cato Institute fellow Cathy Young noted that the patriarch mentioned “the evil of gay parades” multiple times in last weekend’s Forgiveness Sunday sermon but “did not say a word about fellow Christians under fire in Ukraine. . . .”

Christian nationalism is partly driving Putin’s holy war in Ukraine, much like Christian nationalism is at the heart of the Christian Right’s holy war in the United States. The only significant difference between these two religious wars is that one is a shooting war and one is not.

In opposition to the official atheism that defined the Soviet Union of his youth, Putin now believes that Russia is a historic Christian nation that is in danger of eroding into immorality and debauchery. He wants to prevent what he sees as the decadence of the West, a culture informed by autonomous individualism and sexual promiscuity, from influencing eastern Europe.

While I might stipulate that there's some group of people who are "Christian nationalists" in the US, if this means they somehow want to establish some flavor of Christian as the national religion, they have a tough row to hoe against the First Amendment, which specifically prohibits it. And it's worth pointing out that the US Catholic bishops have been taking collections to aid Ukraine in the conflict, Pope Francis has been clear that Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a bad thing, and he has specifically engaged Patriarch Kirill in the matter of his endorsement of it. Yet Catholics are the largest Christian denomination in the US. Certainly the US bishops have no problem with the First Amendment.

The next problem goes beyond the war and into the question of how the media understands and defines "Evangelicals", which is a vague term covering everyone from main line Baptists to people who assert simply that they've been "born again" or "have a personal relationship with Jesus", but don't attend church services at all. This is an almost meaningless designation, and it certainly doesn't imply that any in this vague group automatically support Putin or are some sort of Christian nationalists.

Here's another, similar take:

[C]onservatives [have] been developing a political and emotional alliance with Russia for almost 20 years. Those American believers, including prominent figures such as [Franklin] Graham and Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice see Russia, Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church as protectors of the faith, standing against attacks on “traditional” and “family” values. At the center is Russia’s spate of anti-LGBTQ laws, which have become a model for some anti-trans and anti-gay legislation in the U.S.

Now, with Russia bombing churches and destroying cities in Ukraine, the most Protestant of the former Soviet Republics, American evangelical communities are divided. Most oppose Russia’s actions, especially because there is a strong evangelical church in Ukraine that is receiving attention and prayers from a range of evangelical leaders.

Er, what "anti-LGBTQ laws" that are "a model for some anti-trans and anti-gay legislation in the U.S."? The only ones I'm aware of in the US are meant to prevent sexual grooming of pre-teens in the classroom but have no bearing on private conduct outside of it. And this reporter seems not to know what most writers quickly learn: Google is your friend:

[T]he majority of Ukrainians (74%) identify themselves as Orthodox, 8% as the Greco-Roman Catholicism, 1% – as Roman Catholicism and Protestant and Evangelical churches. Just Christians consider themselves almost 9% of respondents, don’t identify themselves with any religious denominations 6%.

Regionally, in all areas of the most common is Orthodoxy, except Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv region, where more than half respondents profess Greek-Catholicism. Also, the Greek Catholics consider themselves almost 20% of the population of Transcarpathia. Roman Catholicism is more common than in other areas in the Carpathian region (7%).

Among those who consider themselves as Orthodox, the relative majority (38%) identified themselves as Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, 20% – to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1% – to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, 39% – consider themselves as just Orthodox.

As far as I can tell from Facebook, Protestant denominations across the board, as well as Jewish charities, have been making humanitarian appeals to support displaced Ukrainians. I've seen no equivalent appeals for Russia. And as I've said, US Catholic parishes have been taking up second collections at mass for Ukraine and including Ukraine in prayers. As the link indicates, there are far more Catholics than Protestants of any type in Ukraine. (As a more or less conservative diocesan Catholic, I have a small Ukrainian flag sticker on my car, and one of our friends at mass recently implored my wife and me to pray for Ukraine.)

As a result, I suspect Christian support for Russia from any direction in the US is overstated in the media.

What about conservatives who are less clearly religious? Tucker Carlson is the most prominent among these, but those with similar views quickly reach the fringe, like Reps Greene and Cawthorn -- joined at the other end of the spectrum by members of the leftist Squad. On the other hand, other conservatives like Rep Dan Crenshaw have a saner perspective:

Yeah, because investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea. You should feel the same.

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 11, 2022

Some remarks I've seen suggest that the fringe US Right feels the ruling class is in some sort of mutual deal with Zelensky to cement its control using Ukraine's current prestige as a cats paw, but it isn't clear exactly how this operates. The ruling class, in the form of President Biden, clearly dragged its feet over supporting Ukraine in the first weeks of the war, and commentators like retired Gen Jack Keane have made the point that the administration has completely reversed its earlier position since then. So precisely what position has the ruling class taken?

My own view is that Zelensky is a Jew and a Ukrainian who sees a strong religious identity, both Jewish and Gentile, as part of an emerging Ukraine. At this point, he's an independent force to be reckoned with.