Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ The Russian Orthodox Church has ordered its priests to read a daily "Prayer for Holy Rus'" asking God to oppose those who have "taken up arms against Holy Rus'" and asking for "victory to Russian weapons" Priests who refuse are being punished by being defrocked. ⬇️

2/ The head of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Gregory of Voskresensky, has issued a circular which is the first publicly disclosed official church document regulating internal church support for the war, according to the journalist and religious scholar Ksenia Luchenko.

3/ The ROC's leader, Patriarch Kirill, wrote the prayer, which has gone through a number of versions in the two years since the full-scale war in Ukraine began. It reflects Putin's ideology that Ukrainians are merely Russians with a sense of false identity.

4/ The prayer appeals to "...God of our salvation, look in mercy on Your humble servants, hear and have mercy on us: behold, those who want to fight have taken up arms against Holy Rus', hoping to divide and destroy her one people.

5/ "Arise, O God, to help Your people and grant us victory through Your power ...

Strengthen the warriors and all the defenders of our Fatherland in Your commandments, send down strength of spirit to them, preserve them from death, wounds and captivity!"

6/ ROC priests are embedded with Russian troops in Ukraine, who have received Kalashnikov-decorated prayer books which compare Putin to the Archangel Michael. The ROC has pursued an aggressive programme of suppressing other churches in occupied regions.

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1602391450393640986

7/ As this illustrates, the ROC has been strongly supportive of the war. It has, for instance, declared pacifism to be a heresy and has defrocked anti-war priests, or even those who have unofficially edited the prayer to turn it into a plea for peace.

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1667867192656896001

8/ In a recent example of ecclesiastical punishment, Archpriest Alexei Uminsky was removed from his rectorship and banned from serving as a priest. He was replaced with the ferociously anti-Ukrainian Archpriest Andrei Tkachev, whose statements have included:

9/ ☦ “If they [the Ukrainians] came here, they would cut us up and smear the roofs with blood, as they used to say. Now we are ending this war, and we will end it!”

10/ ☦ “You're out there fighting with Satan face to face, and there's still a separate war here too. We are grateful to you for doing this dirty bloody work.”

11/ ☦ “We are the New Israel, called to a special historical mission..... And against us are the afterthoughts of Babylon, Egypt and Rome, with their idols, sacrifices and depravity.”

12/ ☦ “It’s interesting how Russia finds itself in war ... The entire political corps of Ukraine are jackals. Not just jackals, but also Judases and demon-possessed jackals.”

13/ ☦ “Ukraine is only physically in the 21st century, psychologically it corresponds to the 19th century at best, or even the 17th. ... Ukrainians are sheared and cut, as they were sheared and cut before the era of historical materialism.”

14/ Such statements aren't untypical of pro-war Russian Orthodox priests, and highlight why Ukraine has taken steps to root out the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine as a hostile force. /end

Sources:
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🔹 t.me/astrapress/454…
t.me/orthozombies/8…
patriarchia.ru/db/text/596265…
carnegieendowment.org/politika/91875
t.me/astrapress/527…
t.me/mozhemobyasnit…