INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a powerful ally of President Vladimir Putin, is embracing the rhetoric of the medieval crusades in urging
support for Moscow's offensive in eastern Ukraine.When Pope Urban ordered the first crusade to the Middle East in 1095, he told Christians
to rise up and defend fellow believers, promising that their sins would be wiped away.Nearly 10 centuries later, Kirill has called on
believers to support pro-Russian "brothers" during Moscow's offensive in eastern Ukraine.In a sermon in September, he said that dying in
Ukraine "washes away all sins."As humiliating military setbacks for Russia in Ukraine pile up, authorities in Moscow seem increasingly
willing to depict the campaign in religious terms.Keen to ensure public support, Putin declared during his midnight address on New Year's
Eve that "moral, historical rightness is on our side."He had initially said that the fellow Orthodox Christian nation needed to be
"demilitarized" and "de-Nazified."But more than 10 months into Moscow's offensive, Russian authorities, military commanders and
propagandists aim to depict the conflict as a battle against the decadent West.In early November, former president Dmitry Medvedev said that
Russia faced an existential threat and that the "sacred goal" was to fight the satanic West."We are listening to the words of the Creator in
our hearts and obeying them," Medvedev, who serves as deputy head of Russia's Security Council, wrote on messaging app Telegram."The goal is
priests have been sent to the front to support Russian troops.Archpriest Svyatoslav Churkanov said that such missions help guide soldiers in
their duty on the battlefield."The priest does not allow them to lose their souls, to descend into inhumanity even if the circumstances
offensive, adding that in Ukraine, Russia was defending "traditional values.""In Ukraine, even in wartime conditions, they are holding gay
parades to show that they share Western values," he claimed.Several Orthodox clerics have died in Ukraine including Mikhail Vasilyev, who
posthumously received from Putin the Hero of Russia award, the country's top honor.For Nikita Astakhov, artistic director of Glas (Voice), a
Moscow theatre that promotes Orthodox values, rising up against evil has always been Russia's mission, be it a battle against Napoleon in
1812 or the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, as World War II is known in the country."Russia will never be defeated as long as more than
half of Russians are Orthodox," Astakhov told AFP.'Fratricidal war'The offensive has deepened a rift between the Russian and Ukrainian
But even in Russia, not every cleric supports the rhetoric of the Moscow Patriarchate.Andrei Kordochkin, an Orthodox priest based in Madrid,
said the words come straight from the Middle Ages."This is exactly the terminology that Pope Urban used blessing the crusade," Kordochkin
said."We can be nostalgic for the Middle Ages, but it is impossible to return there," he added
"War as a form of murder cannot have any spiritual meaning at all."Kordochkin was among nearly 300 Russian Orthodox clerics who signed an
open letter urging authorities to end the "fratricidal war" in Ukraine.Kordochkin said "many more" people agreed with the letter's message
but were unable to sign it for various reasons."We bitterly think about the chasm that our children and grandchildren in Russia and Ukraine
will have to overcome in order to start being friends with each other again, respect and love each other," the petition said.Several
clerics were moved to other parishes and replaced by priests loyal to the Kremlin, he said."One priest served 30 years in his parish and was
then transferred to serve elsewhere," he added, calling the Russian offensive a "catastrophe."
