Russian Monastery Near Kazan Publishes Booklet Declaring Opponents of War in Ukraine ‘Cowards’ and ‘Traitors’

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 10 – The Raifa Bogoroditsky Monastery, a Russian Orthodox outpost in Tatarstan, has issued a booklet declaring that Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine are “cowards,” “traitors” and consumerists more concerned about their own well-being than that of Russia.
    The booklet urges Orthodox parishioners to show “deep respect … for those who have gone to fight” because Russia is “certainly right” in carrying out “a special operation” given that on occasion, war is “the only possible manifestation of  active love” (nemoskva.net/2025/01/11/net-vojne-krichat-trusy-i-veshhelyuby-potrebiteli-tak-napisano-v-bukletah-duhovnye-smysly-svo-ih-razdayut-v-hramah/).
    According to the booklet’s authors, who are not specified by name, war has other advantages because the experiences with death it provides those who take part in it, helps the faithful to decide whether “you are a believer or an unbeliever.” And it warns that “radical pacifism contradicts not only Christian traditions but elementary human logic.
    There are likely many such publications being put out by ROC MP branches, and their extreme militance shows yet again the wars in which the Moscow church is becoming ever more the ideological arm of the Kremlin as the war in Ukraine progresses (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/moscow-patriarchate-set-to-follow.html).  
    That militarist stance of the Russian church undoubtedly pleases the powers that be, but there is growing evidence that it is driving away many who had attended its services because its current message is so at odds with the Biblical traditions of Christianity (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/only-about-half-as-many-russians.html).