Deadly Serious Criticism
- Mir Vsem
- Jun 14
- 6 min read
Updated: Sep 2
A Confession of Orthodox Christians in Russia Against the War in Ukraine
By Johannes Oeldemann
At the beginning of January, a group of about 30 people—mostly priests, but also some laypeople—anonymously published a “Confession of Faith” in Russia. In it, they sharply criticize Patriarch Kirill and the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate, who attempt to theologically justify Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Johannes Oeldemann, Director of the Johann-Adam-Möhler Institute for Ecumenism in Paderborn, analyzes this courageous act of resistance.
Critical moments in the life of the Church are often the times when “confessions” are written. This was true of the Nicene Creed adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, when the Arian heresy threatened Church unity. It was true of the confessional writings of the Reformers in the 16th century, in which they opposed the abuses of the Church of their time. And it is also true of modern confessions, like the “Confession of Belhar,” in which the Reformed Church in South Africa condemned apartheid in the 1980s. At the start of this year, in which Christian churches celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council, a remarkable confession of Orthodox Christians appeared in Russia. On January 7, 2025—Orthodox Christmas—they published on a Telegram channel a declaration against the war, which they themselves call a “Confession of Faith.”
In it, the authors strongly criticize Patriarch Kirill and the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate for supporting and attempting to theologically justify the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Just how unconditionally the Patriarch supports the Russian president was evident recently when, during an Easter service in Moscow, he said it could only be explained by “divine providence” that President Putin stands at the head of the Russian state.
The approximately eight-page-long confession denounces the Russian Orthodox Church’s closeness to the state and emphasizes—through biblical citations and references to Orthodox theological tradition—that the Moscow Church leadership’s path contradicts both the biblical message and the core principles of Christian doctrine. Instead, the text calls for fidelity to Christ and the Gospel, which is also the title of the statement.
The text, which is also available in German translation (see: www.noek.info/hintergrund/3646-christus-und-dem-evangelium-treu-bleiben; all further quotes are from this translation by the author), is structured into eight articles of varying length.
The first opposes the misuse of God's name, which must not be instrumentalized for political purposes.
The second criticizes the merging of state and Church interests, which leads the Orthodox Church in Russia to become “an ideological department of the state apparatus.”
Human Beings as Disposable Material
The third article refers to human dignity and condemns how people are misused by the state in war as “disposable material,” sent into battle with no regard for losses.
The fourth emphasizes the equality of all nations before God and opposes “any form of national messianism and national self-glorification.” The doctrine of the “Russian World” cited by Patriarch Kirill and President Putin as justification for the invasion is denounced as an ideology that replaces faith in Christ with faith in a national religion, reducing God to a national deity. This destroys the universal nature of the Church and gives a political concept the false appearance of ecclesiastical doctrine.
Referring to the command that Christians should “live according to the commandments of Christ,” the fifth article criticizes the fierce “fight for traditional values” that Patriarch Kirill sees as being particularly endangered or fundamentally questioned in the West. According to the authors, this is nothing more than an attempt “to cover up the loss of truly Christian moral values such as love, freedom, compassion, and mercy within the internal life of the Church.”
The extensive sixth article focuses on Christian charity and highlights “the important role that the doctrine of love for enemies plays in Christian ethics.” Therefore, any sermon glorifying violence is incompatible with the teachings of Christ. With reference to the Church Fathers and the canon law of the Orthodox Church, the text underscores “the sinfulness of murder.” Consequently, even soldiers who kill in war, according to the rules of St. Basil, should be barred from communion for three years. The article ends with a clear condemnation of the term “holy war,” such as appears in a document from the Russian “People’s Council” under the leadership of Patriarch Kirill in March 2024. “Declaring a war to be holy is incompatible with the teaching of Christ—even if it were a defensive war, and all the more so in the case of a war of aggression.”
On the Nature of the Church
The final two articles address the understanding of the Church.
The seventh criticizes the “vertical power structure” in the Russian Orthodox Church. Patriarch Kirill, it says, has increasingly developed into a “church autocrat” whose opinions, statements, and decisions are not subject to discussion or criticism. The article notes that synods of bishops, mandated by the statutes of the Moscow Patriarchate, have not been convened in years. If “the principle of synodality is neither substantively nor even formally observed,” this leads to a distortion of church life. This distortion is also evident when any dissent from clergy is equated with perjury and leads to suspension from church office.
The final, eighth article emphasizes that the true mission of the Church lies in reconciliation. It is “called to serve reconciliation between hostile nations, social groups, and political parties.” Here, the text refers to the “Foundations of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,” a document significantly co-authored by Patriarch Kirill, thereby confronting the Church leadership with its own stated positions. The section ends with a sharp critique of the suspension of priests who, during a liturgy, replaced the word “victory” in a prayer introduced by Patriarch Kirill with the word “peace.” To misuse prayer “as an instrument to test loyalty to earthly rulers” is nothing less than “the persecution of Christians for their faithfulness to the word of Christ.”
An Orthodox Approach
The confession of the Russian Christians ends with the words: “The word of God endures forever” (Isaiah 40:8). It is surely no coincidence that these are the same words that conclude the “Barmen Theological Declaration,” through which the Confessing Church in Germany in 1934 positioned itself against Nazi ideology. Thus, the question arises whether this confession from Russia is comparable to the Barmen Declaration. In intention and content, it certainly is. In structure and language, however, the Russian confession is quite different from Barmen. In my opinion, it represents a genuinely Orthodox approach to the question of the legitimacy and limits of ecclesiastical positions in political matters. This same issue was addressed in the “Declaration on the Russian World Teaching” by Orthodox theologians in March 2022 (see: www.publicorthodoxy.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2022-03-22-Declaration-German.pdf ). That document is even more structurally and linguistically aligned with the Barmen Declaration. However, unlike the Confessing Church under National Socialism, those who signed that earlier declaration live outside Russia and therefore are not at risk of being arrested by Russian security forces and sent to Siberian camps.
Families in Danger
By contrast, the authors of the declaration published on Christmas Day 2025, as they emphasize at the beginning, live in Russia and choose to stay there despite their rejection of the war. The text they composed requires real courage and thus more closely resembles what “Barmen” meant for Protestant Christians in Germany. Unlike Barmen, the identities of the authors remain unknown. Well-informed sources report that a group of about 30 people—mostly priests, but also some laypeople—stand behind the text. They remain anonymous because revealing their names would endanger their lives and those of their families. Perhaps, unlike Barmen, no “big names” are involved. This text derives its power not from the authority of its authors, but solely from the strength of its words. As the authors write in their brief introduction, anyone who shares these theses with others makes them their own. Disseminating the theses is described as an act of confession. In that sense, the text—like Barmen—has the character of a confession. Whether it will one day attain similar significance for the Orthodox Church in Russia as the Barmen Theological Declaration did for Protestant Christians in Germany remains to be seen. Only with the benefit of time will its historical impact become clear.
