Our sister blog, Public Orthodoxy, has addressed an open letter to Ecumenical Patrriarch Bartholomew and the global leaders of other Christian churches and denominations, calling on them to “to actively and immediately engage with the appropriate international institutions to facilitate the establishment of an international task force dedicated to holding accountable, through sincere and impartial analysis, those bishops, priests, and laity within the Russian Orthodox Church whose statements, testimonials, sermons, communications, and fabrications have sanctioned and bestowed divine approval upon violence, war, and aggression against the people of Ukraine”—first among the offenders, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
Orthodoxy in Dialogue stands with Ukraine and fully supports Public Orthodoxy’s initiative. We urge our readers around the planet to read the open and letter and sign it. You need not be Orthodox to sign.
We address your Excellencies, leaders of the major Christian Churches and confessions, to plead with you. We ask that you publicly address four acute problems that large-scale military conflicts in the modern world pose to all Christians:
- Using religion to justify violence
- Injustice
- Religious nationalism
- Outright lies emanating from church pulpits
These pressing issues are amplified within the context of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. From the very beginning, this conflict took on a distinctive character, in which Russia, a nation primarily identifying itself as Orthodox Christian, invaded Ukraine, another predominantly Christian nation, without any immediate provocation from the side of the latter. Ironically, citizens of both countries were, until recently, affiliated with one and the same Orthodox Church.
We refrain from challenging the propaganda clichés that posit Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as proxy war with the West. Such assertions conveniently align with the perspectives of armchair analysts, but greatly oversimplify the situation. The oversimplification becomes apparent when one examines the frontlines from a human perspective, in which Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are the ones sacrificing their lives, rather than from a geopolitical one—especially a Western geopolitical one.
ORTHODOXY IN DIALOGUE 