Above: LEFT: St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv. RIGHT: Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow’s central square named after Basil the Blessed, Fool for Christ, Wonderworker of Moscow, b. 1438.

For anyone discovering us for the first time, you may wonder, how exactly are we connected with the nation of Russia? And why be connected with Russia, especially during the current war in Ukraine? The answer is that we are not connected with Russia per se, but with other Orthodox Christians within a church organization that includes Russians, but also includes many converts to Orthodox Christianity in parishes all over the world. My heart certainly goes out to both Ukrainians and Russians during this fearful and terrible war.

Orthodox Christians come from many different nations and no one ethnicity is favored above others. In fact, we consider the favoritism of one ethnicity above another to be a heresy called ethnophyletism. Yet the different jurisdictions of the Orthodox Church are linked to nations. For example, there is the Orthodox Church of Russia, which is the largest, one of Greece, one of Serbia, one of Romania, one of Japan, and one of India, etc. etc.. This is because language, boarders and culture are instituted by God and provide a natural way to set up distinct jurisdictions of the Church, not because we wish to irritate and inflame these natural devisions. We always remember Galatians 3:27-28: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” At least that is the calling of the Church, to be one in Christ Jesus. Christ prayed that all his followers would be one.

Our parish here in Brookings happens to be part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), which was formed by exiles from Russia during the communist revolution, yet we are part of the “Western Rite Communities” within ROCOR (see ROCOR-WR.org), so we are seeking to emphasize the unique Christian heritage of England and the United States in our worship and culture. And we seek to be ruled one day by our own patriarch on American soil. This is only natural.

So, regarding our connection to Russia, in some ways it is close and in some ways it is distant. ROCOR itself has always been cosmopolitan and anti-communist and still today many ROCOR members are quick to distance themselves from various aspects of Russian national politics.

I myself have no Russian heritage and never dreamed that I would ever worship alongside Russian Americans, as I did from 2015 -2020, or know how to say “Lord have mercy” in Russian—“господи помилуй.” How that happened is a long story, which you can read about here. And no, Vladimir Putin didn’t make me become an Orthodox Christian any more than he got Trump elected or caused the price inflation of Joe Biden’s Presidency! But it will be hard to disabuse some of those notions, people with less imagination than a trilobyte fossilized under a mountain of gender studies literature. There’s a squad of leftist partisans in this nation baffled and scared witless of anything that’s different from their own dogma!

About Putin

But if you must know my close, personal history with Putin,—*eye roll*—I learned about Vladimir Putin through YouTube in the early 2010s. I had stumbled into a thread of videos that were critical of America’s “military industrial complex” and our militaristic “petrodollar” hegemony and, along with that, our unrestrained foreign wars. I caught videos from RT America, now banned from YouTube because of the war in Ukraine, and listened to Putin’s criticism of America’s blind war-mongering, agreeing with his sentiment. Earlier, I had briefly joined with and then quit the U.S. Air National Guard because I realized I could end up fighting a war as pointless as the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Most interesting was Putin’s complaining about how hard it has been to keep up with U.S. weapons technology and stockpiling! I thought his rhetoric was a lot less militaristic than what I had heard from American presidents. Then, after beginning to attend an Orthodox Church in 2015, I learned that Putin was in fact a practicing Orthodox Christian and a great public proponent of conservative family values and even a benefactor of the Orthodox Church, which had experienced a revival since the fall of communism in 1991, with thousands of churches springing up all over the country. Because of that then I began to like him quite a lot and, thus, the politics in Russia didn’t seem to be any hindrance when I considered even possibly moving to Russia in 2020 in order to continue exploring my new Orthodox faith and avoid the high cost of living in the US. (As it turns out I didn’t do that.)

Taking into account that personal history then, the fact that I had become quite interested in Russia, I can’t tell you how shocked I was when Putin invaded Urkraine, attempting to send tanks into Kyiv! I felt dismayed. Far from viewing the Russian perspective of RT as mere propaganda I thought of all the good it had done and now all that was wasted because Putin had made everyone’s stereotypes of Russians come true again, that Russians are bloodthirsty, empire-building goons!

Now, I don’t believe that the invasion of Ukraine was actually about empire building. It’s clear that the Russian aims were limited. They wished to bring Ukraine to the negotiating table, annexing certain provinces, which were ethnically Russian and which had already seceded from Ukraine, inhabited by many Orthodox Christians who were being persecuted. And they wished to keep Ukraine out of NATO. But, nevertheless I do believe Putin overstepped tactically. Annexing Crimea peacefully with popular consent was one thing, and annexing these eastern provinces, which were already at war, may have been right, but sending tanks into Kyiv? I realize that the war started in 2014, not 2022, and that there were Nazi’s in Ukraine practicing ethnic cleansing; I realize Russians felt very threatened by NATO nukes (Putin is not the only one in Russia who wants the war); and I’ve listened to Professor John Mearshiemer explain the lead up to the war, including the U.S. State Department’s clueless disregard of Russia’s security interests, but no matter how sophisticated one’s knowledge of the situation and how much you think the Russians are justified, it still takes wisdom and restraint to succeed, not brute force. We need to be like Abraham who yielded to Lot what appeared to be the best land and the most powerful situation. Wouldn’t it would be best to err on the side of assisting persecuted Russians in Ukraine to endure persecution—forming their own separate communities within Ukraine with their own private Christian, Russian-language schools, rather than escalating war? But Putin and all people in power tend to do what they want.

I discovered a press conference just prior to the invasion of Ukraine in which someone asked Putin how an invasion could produce a good outcome. He asked, “Is good always weak?” This is when I realized that Putin may have something to prove. Though he may be a baptized Christian, he doesn’t necessarily have the mind of Christ. For the Christian who possesses the Holy Spirit, weakness is strength. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Wars of aggression are prideful and wrong. There is a limit to achieving peace through strength. True peace is only achieved through spiritual means. How much will the current war further divide the populations of Russia and Ukraine, causing hatred and distrust? How much will it divide Russians and Greeks, who tend to side more with Ukraine or Russians and all Westerners for that matter?

As an example of just how many souls this war effects, consider this reaction from Joel Salatin, the well known activist farmer from Virginia. Number one on his wish list for 2023 is that “Vladimir Putin admits his Holy War against the debauched West is not the way to solve unrighteousness, has a change of heart, withdraws from Ukraine, and asks the world for forgiveness.” And that is not coming from someone who is an unqualified supporter of United States policies at home or abroad—far from it. It’s just wisdom from a farmer. But I have to agree with it.

Thus I now believe that Putin is not a pure defender of Orthodox Christianity but an ideologue who is using theological populism to galvanize support among the Russian Orthodox Christians for Russian national interests, which are not perfectly aligned with the best interests of Orthodox Christians, however much some Russophile Orthodox would like to think so.

Our Best Life Now

That begs the question, what is in the best interests of Orthodox Christians? Of course we have to pray, but we need to remember Jesus words to the pharisees: “Produce fruit, then, in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8).

A BBC journalist asked a bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church about Putin: “So, when Putin comes to the Ukraine and says he’s come here to protect the Russian speakers, and to protect the Russian Church—what do you have to say about that?” He said, “The Church didn’t ask him for that. We trust in God for protection.”

That is faithful reply. We trust in God for protection. That is repentance. Now, as to whether that bishop has works that demonstrate his dependence on God is another question, but that statement is where we need to begin. And when so many are wondering how to resist the nihilism of progressive democratic liberalism in the United States around the world it needs to be heard. This is one reason I’m attracted to the Orthodox Church; because I see in it individuals who are at the very center of the storms raging in the world,—-that is to say, they are not in the bubble of American security and relative prosperity which I grew up in,—-who are enduring every kind of abuse and yet they continue to manifest great faith and fruit. I’ve seen this in Uganda, where I’ve visited, and now in Ukraine.

Orthodox Christianity in the United States

Yet, how are we going to trust God in America, which is the epicenter of the godless, materialistic, consumeristic, neopagan, global progressivism? What does faith in God look like in our context? I believe I speak for our small community when I say we need to acknowledge the threat to our way of life posed by the global left, but also acknowledge that, as Christians, we have the leaders and politicians we deserve. In other words, Christians are central to the drama unfolding around us. It is through us that the nations will be blessed or cursed. We must acknowledge that the right conservative leader grandstanding in the next election is not going to turn things around, but what is needed is the commitment of a core of Christians to worship, repentance and creating enduring institutions that provide services in Christ’s name for our lives and those of our neighbors. I believe we especially need to work towards an all-encompassing, Christ-centered, liberal arts education for our children, so that they learn how Christ is the true foundation of our civilization.

We will not lose our nation because Trump fails to be re-elected (however much he insists on that), but we will certainly lose it if we do not fear God. Without the fear of God we will fail to win our children’s hearts and minds. To say this is to acknowledge that the left has certain values which we need to adopt ourselves, such as a concern for the environment. It’s true enough that those on the left are often hypocritical environmentalists, but that is all the more reason for us to co-opt this political issue for ourselves. Care for the environment, if it is truly such, is not a threat to Christian faith, but one of the fruits of faith. Thus we need to dialogue with the left while not forgetting that real solutions for the environment can come only through our own grassroots, Church-led movements, not centralized decision making, centralized socialist education for our children, etc., etc..

More to the point, I believe in order to win our nation, we have to acknowledge that we’ve already lost it. Christians have lost the culture wars, not because Christ failed us, but because in some way we failed to follow Christ. And we need to go back to where we diverged from the true course. We believe that the saving answer involves a radical realignment of our perspective and loyalties from a United States centric vision of the world with a now very hollow, civic religion as our foundation (casual religious utterances by our politicians devoid of substance, which during the 1920s was called BOMFOG, “brotherhood of man, fatherhood of God,”) to a global vision of the world with our private, local church institutions as our foundation for all of life, giving voice to the needs of the global Orthodox Church and based on sound doctrine and praxis. In other words, when we’re up against the global progressive elite, we need to build on the original, historic, global Church, which subdued the Roman empire. If you think church history started in 1848 when Benjamin “Bible Buster” Beardsley founded Buffalo Breath Bible College, that’s not gunna to cut it.

As an example of what I’m talking about, I believe every dollar that Russia spent on the war with Ukraine is a dollar that could have been donated to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for the establishment of private parish schools, and scholarship programs, etc. Likewise every dollar that Americans have spent on this war is money wasted. It’s just our military industrial complex dumbly grinding up and spitting out chunks of the world for its own profit, like an expensive wood chipper you have to keep running to make the monthly payments.

Above All Nations (Duet 26:19)

If we regard the institution that Christ started, the Church, as a nation above all nations by aspiring to build such foundational, needed institutions as classical Christian schools and supporting them as we are able, then the Church will be functionally the nation above all nations. “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.” What if instead of war Putin had decided to extend his charitable efforts even to Africa facilitating the cooperation of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Ugandan and Kenyan and Congolese Orthodox Churches in their endeavors with Christ-centered schooling and and asking the world to join him in the effort? What if he then opened up opportunities for Africans to work in Russia to fill Russia’s labor shortages? Was a galumphing parade of tanks into Kyiv really the most creative thing Putin could have done?

To be clear, Christ is always the King of Kings and because of that the Church is always the nation above all nations, but there is still a difference between being in the lion’s den and being in the kings palace. Deuteronomy chapter 28 explains how God disciplines his people and how he blesses them and if we think that what we are receiving now in the United States is all the blessings we can receive in Christ or all the curses we can receive for not following Christ, then in the words of the American poet, “b-b-b-baby, you just ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Instead of adding actual war to our culture wars we need to stop, repent, return to the simplicity of Christ and and rediscover charity with a focus on our children’s spiritual needs.

So to return to the subject of this post, our affiliations and ultimate loyalty is not with any one nation, whether our beloved homeland the United States or Russia or Tajikistan, which by the way is a really cool name for a Stan. Our vision is to pray the Western, English liturgy under the tutelage of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, because as people who have been separated from our Orthodox Christian roots for almost 1000 years we have a lot to learn. And the way Orthodoxy works is that one national church learns from another national church until their church is victorious and venerable, graced with triumphant saints, and then that national church becomes what is called “autocephalous,” which means having its own head or “patriarch.” (The Orthodox Church doesn’t have a Pope. We have patriarchs of nations who meet together and through their councils preserve the purity of the church. Only a synod of patriarchs can discipline a patriarch.)

The reason the Roman Catholic Church went astray is that the Patriarch of Rome didn’t listen to the other patriarchs, but regarded himself as above reproof and later, infallible. (That is the basic outline of the schism, but of course the details are more complex and there were ways in which the East was also responsible for the schism.)  However, the correction to the error of Rome was not to abandon the entire patriarchal, hierarchical order of the church with all of it’s practical experience over centuries to be replaced by a me-and-my-Bible, rugged American individualism. That’s the route that most Americans have taken and look where it’s leading, to secular humanist progressivism, which is a kingdom mawkishly imitating Christ, but with a new class victims and heroes. Instead of the word’s poor and those who serve the poor as our primary victims and heroes, to this we have added those who follow their passions, whatever they may be, and those who justify them. This has not happened because conservatives have been angels, but because we have also followed our disordered passions. Our leftist children are made in our image.

As a former evangelical Protestant I am convinced that evangelical Protestants need to realize that it was our own embracing of an anti-clerical, highly individualistic Christianity which has ushered in this global kingdom of the anti-Christs, meaning those who are in rivalry with Christ. If we want to revive a robust, “Christian nationalism,” the only way we can do that is on a patriarchal Orthodox foundation. This doesn’t mean that if a bishop is forcing COVID masks and vaccines or some such non-sense we have to go along with that. Bishops can veer into unorthodox behavior as indeed they have done recently. But we need bishops and we need them to do the work of bishops courageously. Otherwise we will have more of what we are experiencing now, in the words of Isaiah, “My people—children [those who play the child] are their oppressors, and women rule over them.* O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.”

(*The Bible doesn’t say women should submit to men, but only wive’s to their husbands. When a woman submits to one man, whom she gets to chose, that one man then frees her from the necessity of submitting to any other man. And the husband, if he’s a Christian, is given the lofty calling of loving his wife as Christ loves the Church.)

Jesus never said that following him would be easy to explain to the world. Following Christ is a great mystery, but he does promise to lighten our load and to reveal great truth and treasures. A key step in following Christ today is to acknowledge our brothers and sisters in other nations and not be embarrassed to claim them, whatever nation they are from, even Russia.

As Orthodox Christians we are ambassadors of a Kingdom above all nations, which enables us to rise above petty nationalism while embracing the good side of nationalism. Because of Christ’s love for his brothers in all nations we are able to become advocates of the nations—-instead of tacit supporters of a soulless leftist hegemony (or a soulless conservative hegemony).

Again, literal war is not the way to win the world for Christ, but that being said, figurative war is. And it is up to Christians to take up the battle for the souls of men with faith and alacrity. “For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” 1 Cor 15:25.

Let me conclude with this thought: There is no true Christian faith that doesn’t promise world conquest. There are three main pitfalls and only one true course. First, the pitfalls:

1. If we don’t believe that the Gospel can conquer the world, and we engage with the world. Then every form of cultural engagement for Christians is a losing one. That is ecumenism.
2. If we don’t believe that the Gospel can conquer the world, but we don’t want to surrender to the world, then we can try the route of isolationism.
3. If we say we believe that the Gospel can conquer the world, but we trust in militant politicians and weapons of this world instead of the Gospel, that is pharisaism!

The only true course is faithful preaching and faithful living of the Gospel, the truth that God through Christ has already given us the world. Then, when confronted with the above temptations—a decadent ecumenism, or a retreating isolationism, or a militant pharisaism—we can simply check, “none of the above,” and proceed instead to build the kingdom of God through our private, local, institutions which disciple our children and provide services to those who would be our partners in the freedom of Christ. How can we disciple the nations if we are are not discipling our children?

May God bless the United States and may God bless Russia and Ukraine and Uganda and every nation, giving them freedom and self-governance as can only be found through Christ!