Just a few months ago, the book The Heresy of Patriarch Kirill was released, which examines Patriarch Kirill’s public statements and teachings in light of the witness of the saints.
As expected, those sympathetic to Patriarch Kirill reacted with numerous objections. These objections fell into the three following groups:
A. Objections That Show the Book Has Not Been Read Carefully
B. Objections That Change the Subject
C. Objections That Pass Judgment on the Authors
We have combed through the responses to the book and selected objections that represent the issues raised most often, as well as those that may seem strongest to readers who have not yet read it.
Let us immediately turn to the objections presented.
One short note before we begin:
The objection headings are simply summary paraphrases of the criticisms received. For the exact wording and context of those criticisms, please consult the sources linked in the relevant footnotes accompanying the objections.
A. Objections That Show the Book Has Not Been Read Carefully
Objection 1: “Patriarch Kirill cannot be a nationalist because he is an ecumenist”
“The Heresy of Patriarch Kirill” (which we will abbreviate in the rest of this article as THOPK) draws on the wisdom of saints to explain errors of both nationalism and Ecumenism.
Nationalism subjects the Church to an ethnic or national project
Ecumenism compromises the boundaries and confession of the Church for a false unity.
The same person or institution can do both. There is absolutely no contradiction in pursuing both simultaneously.
Is it really that difficult to understand or imagine that religious compromises (Ecumenism) can be expedient for a nation’s diplomatic interests?
Therefore, most of the confusion from those who protest derives from misunderstanding the term “nationalism” and what it really means. This is one of the reasons that very early on in Chapter 16 discussing nationalism, a clarification / explanation from Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev (himself a Russian and a Muscovite) is presented very prominently.
We would invite these individuals to read now, what they looked over in their responses:
The combination of nationalism with Christianity is an erroneous teaching. […] When an argument about nationalism starts, problems arise because of the terms. People understand the word “nationalism” to mean everything under the sun. When I say that nationalism cannot be combined with Christianity I understand the word “nationalism” the way an ordinary encyclopedia understands it. According to any encyclopedia this term has two definitions. The first is the idea of an exclusive role, of my nation’s superiority over all other nations. A Christian would never say that we are better than others because we are Russian. The second type of nationalism mentioned in the encyclopedia is the assertion that a nation is the highest form of social organization. A Christian would not agree with this either. The highest thing in the world is the Church.
— Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev, Questions to a Priest, Question 98
It is painfully obvious through these words that Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev, in his home country of Russia no less, struggled with those who frequently misunderstood nationalism.
The objection that will most likely follow from this point is that there is nothing wrong with nationalism, which these individuals understand as simply loving one’s homeland. But loving one’s homeland is not nationalism. This was also clarified in the book:
Patriotism is love of one’s fatherland, and these feelings are natural. Love of one’s nation is also a natural feeling and does not need a name. For instance, a person might like his native language, and that is normal. A person might like the culture in which he grew up, and that is normal as well.
— Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev, Questions to a Priest, Question 98
So one may ask: what is the difference between love for one’s country and nationalism?
The error of nationalism begins when a nation claims spiritual superiority, an exclusive role in salvation history, or the right to make the Church serve its political interests. Love for one’s country, which is natural and proper, only becomes a problem when loyalty to one’s nation takes precedence over fidelity to Christ and His Church.
For example: if nation comes first, good relations with the non-Orthodox (Ecumenism) can and absolutely will become a reason to compromise the faith for the sake of national unity (nationalism). This is why Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev rightly expressed in his aforementioned definition above that nothing can come higher than the Church for an Orthodox Christian.
This is extremely relevant, being that Patriarch Kirill has repeatedly placed nation above Christianity, and numerous examples in the book are given of this:
Subordination of the Church to the Russian World project (Chapter 15)
Religious justification of Russia’s war (Chapter 18)
Teaching that death while fulfilling military duty washes away sins (Chapter 17).
Ecumenist agreement with Rome (Chapter 2)
Recognition of Roman Catholic saints (Chapter 6)
Promotion of the World Council of Churches (Chapter 7)
Claim that Orthodox Christians and Muslims believe in the same God (Chapter 5).
In the last example here, Patriarch Kirill says that Orthodox Christians and Muslims believe in one God and links this with their shared concern for the well-being of their people and all of Russia.[1] This is an utterly clear example of how Ecumenism serves national unity.
Therefore: there is no contradiction here; nationalism can and has encouraged ecumenism.
Of course, it is very easy for one to be confused if they simply skipped chapters, skimmed the book, and did not read with attention. Unfortunately, we will see that most of the objections stem from carelessness, impatience, or simply a lack of ability to understand the nuance being presented.
All of the aforementioned quotations are in the book, along with clear definitions and distinctions between nationalism and ecumenism. Those definitions establish the basis for what we are criticizing. However, nowhere in any of the responses has this been engaged with in any meaningful way.
So when people ask, “But how can the same person be accused of militant anti-Western nationalism and pro-Latin ecumenism?”[2] the simple answer is: it was explained to you in the book you supposedly just read. [3]
In order to disagree, one would have to either A: show how these definitions already given to them fail to represent a consensus patrum, or B: show how Patriarch Kirill’s statements were misrepresented, or why those statements do not meet the definitions given.
They have not demonstrated any of these things, and in most cases have not even tried to. Given all of this: it doesn’t make sense to ask whether these two errors can coexist, when specific examples of both errors were clearly provided.
Objection 2: “Russia may be called the Restrainer, or katechon”
THOPK criticizes Patriarch Kirill’s calling Russia the Restrainer (or katechon).
In response to this, the following objection was made: there is supposedly no issue with this, because St. John Chrysostom also identified the Roman state as the Restrainer. This objection then rhetorically asks if that makes St. John Chrysostom a heretic[4], according to us.
It’s important to understand that this passage from St. John Chrysostom is already quoted and explained in Chapter 18: Can War Be Called Holy?. Presenting our own provided quotation as a refutation, without addressing what the book says about its meaning, establishes the exhausting nature of the dialogue.
Here is the full passage from St. John Chrysostom in Chapter 18: Can War Be Called Holy?:
Some indeed say, the grace of the Spirit, but others the Roman empire, to whom I most of all accede. Wherefore? Because if he meant to say the Spirit, he would not have spoken obscurely, but plainly […] But because he said this of the Roman empire, he naturally glanced at it, and speaks covertly and darkly. For he did not wish to bring upon himself superfluous enmities, and useless dangers.
[…] For as long as the fear of this empire lasts, no one will willingly exalt himself, but when that is dissolved, he will attack the anarchy, and endeavor to seize upon the government both of man and of God.
— St. John Chrysostom, Homily 4 on 2 Thessalonians, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/23054.htm
It is true that St. John Chrysostom identifies the Roman Empire. But context is always important when examining patristic texts. What is the context here?
St. John Chrysostom identifies Rome because its authority restrained anarchy.
How does that establish Kirill’s claim that surrendering Russia’s military positions in this war brings the “metaphysical end of history” closer? Where is the argument connecting the two?
Additionally, the book quotes Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev referring to America as the restrainer, which we did not criticize. Therefore, the objection is not simply to calling a country the Restrainer. It is to what Kirill claims for Russia and its war. Redundantly quoting St. John Chrysostom does not establish that Russia’s military campaign fulfills the role St. John Chrysostom describes. That is exactly what these responses need to demonstrate, but have largely failed and even refused to do.
There is also one more important problem here:
In 2015, Patriarch Kirill himself originally excluded a particular state or people from the identification of katechon:
«Удерживающим» является, конечно, не государство с тем или иным названием, и даже не народ. Удерживающим от распространения зла является добро.
The “Restrainer” is, of course, not a state with this or that name, and not even a people. What restrains the spread of evil is goodness.
— Patriarch Kirill, “A Pastor’s Word” (“Слово пастыря”) television program, December 5, 2015, https://www.patriarchia.ru/article/97257
Only later, in November 2022, nearly seven years after his earlier statement, did Patriarch Kirill completely flip-flop on his own previous position in support of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Вспоминая, что слово Божие говорит применительно к пришествию в мир антихриста, мы можем сказать, что сегодня Россия — это удерживающий. А это означает, что все силы антихриста будут брошены на нашу страну. Что же в нашей стране является сердцевиной духовного сопротивления? Бесспорно, Русская Православная Церковь.
Recalling what the Word of God says regarding the coming of the Antichrist into the world, we can say that today Russia is the Restrainer. And this means that all the forces of the Antichrist will be thrown against our country. What is the heart of spiritual resistance in our country? Undoubtedly, the Russian Orthodox Church.
— Patriarch Kirill, birthday reception address, November 20, 2022, https://www.patriarchia.ru/article/79283
Нужно молиться за власти наши, за президента, за воинство наше, чтобы мы не сдали своих позиций. Иначе мы не просто будем побеждены некими иноземными силами — речь пойдет о приближении метафизического конца истории, потому что Россия — удерживающий (2 Фес. 2:7).
We must pray for our authorities, for the president, for our armed forces, so that we do not surrender our positions. Otherwise we will not simply be defeated by some foreign forces: what will be at stake is the approach of the metaphysical end of history, because Russia is the Restrainer (2 Thess. 2:7).
— Patriarch Kirill, address at Trinity-Sergius Lavra, July 18, 2023, https://www.patriarchia.ru/article/104698
So: in 2015 he excluded any particular state or people from that role; in November 2022, during the invasion, he only then conveniently identified Russia as the Restrainer; in July 2023 he tied that role to the army not surrendering its positions in the war (“so that we do not surrender our positions”).
Therefore, Patriarch Kirill originally agreed with our sentiments, and only contradicted his own previous position in the midst of a war. Let us see how those making such objections will justify Patriarch Kirill contradicting himself, and previously agreeing with the interpretation set forth in the book.
Objection 3: “You call Fr. Daniel Sysoev a saint, which shows you do not understand Russia”
One of the more perplexing objections around THOPK revolves around Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev.
One response in Russian stated the following: “Sysoev has not been canonized by anyone and is neither a saint nor a hieromartyr.” This was presented as evidence and proof that we supposedly do not understand “even such a simple matter as how canonization takes place in the Russian Orthodox Church.”[5]
Unfortunately, this shows a lack of understanding of the piety and sentiment in their own country:
At Fr. Daniel’s former Moscow parish and grave in 2015, believers venerated the epitrachelion he wore when killed, requested his martyric intercessions, and sang a magnification to him as a martyr. These are acts of veneration already taking place before formal glorification. See “Memorial Services in Honor of the Martyred Fr. Daniel Sysoev”, Pravoslavie.ru, November 27, 2015.
In 2017, the Moscow Tatar Orthodox Christian Community stated explicitly, “Priest Daniel Sysoev is likewise venerated by us as a saint” («Так же нами почитаются как святые … и иерей Даниил Сысоев»). See the community’s notice published by Pravoslavie.ru.
Archpriest Oleg Stenyaev, in Moscow, said, “Did I know he was a saint? I knew” («Знал ли я, что он святой? Знал») and “His veneration has already begun” («Почитание его уже началось»). See his 2012 interview.
Priest Sergii Eliseev, a Moscow theological-school instructor, says that Fr. Daniel devoted his life to the Church and suffered as a martyr for Christ. See his testimony in The Unknown Daniel (Неизвестный Даниил).
Patriarch Kirill himself wrote that the Lord had granted Fr. Daniel “an opportunity to become a confessor of faith and martyr for the cause of preaching the gospel.”[6]
Even Patriarch Kirill himself (above) stated he was a martyr! A hieromartyr is a martyr who was a priest or bishop. Using that title does not claim that a formal canonization decree has already been issued.[6]
The next error is a misunderstanding of the canonization process. This is a common misunderstanding amongst many Orthodox Christians, so it would be good to explain it.
When we read the lives of saints such as St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco[7] or St. Gabriel the Fool for Christ,[8] we find that the faithful venerated them well before their official glorification. This is not up for debate, and ignorance on such matters shows a lack of exposure in reading the lives of our saints, as we are commanded to do as Orthodox Christians.
Generally speaking, a saint is canonized after already being recognized as a saint. Their official glorification simply recognizes what the pious and faithful already held to be true. The Russian Church’s own explanation of canonization confirms that veneration precedes formal glorification:
Bishop Pankratii, chairman of the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints, quotes Kirill himself describing canonization as “the recognition of veneration already formed (emphasis ours) among the Church’s people and witnessed by God through miracles” (“констатация сложившегося в церковном народе почитания подвижника веры, засвидетельствованного Богом чудесами”), not simply a posthumous reward. This appears on the Moscow Patriarchate’s own website: “Прославление и почитание святых”, February 1, 2014.
Metropolitan Hilarion further writes that in the ancient Church “martyrs were declared saints by liturgical practice itself, without any formalities” (“мучеников объявляла святыми сама богослужебная практика, без всяких формальностей”). See “Подвиг мучеников — живой опыт Церкви”, October 24, 2013.
The Holy Synod’s 2016 canonization procedure requires evidence of miracles and “veneration among the people” (“почитании в народе”) to be gathered locally before the Synod decides.
Therefore official canonization requires existing veneration prior to canonization. The idea that someone doesn’t understand Russia because they venerate an individual before their official glorification, represents gross ignorance of our Orthodox tradition.
Let’s ignore this clear evidence for a moment and examine this from a different lens. This understanding of how saints are glorified in the church is true universally. What we are hearing in this explanation, is that Russian Orthodoxy supposedly glorifies its saints in a manner unknown to the Orthodox Church… this is a terrible statement. Orthodoxy is one. How can it be that Greeks, Serbians, Russians, etc, all glorify saints in a completely different way, and that we somehow don’t understand a supposed unique glorifcation process in Russia itself?
This is a sentiment teetering on heresy and ethnophyletism; does the Orthodox faith change at the Russian border? Are we being asked to accept a separate Russian standard of sanctity?
It is then absolutely no surprise that such individuals scoff and ignore the many things Patriarch Kirill says, themselves being unaware of basic tenets of the Orthodox faith.
As we have seen, the Russian faithful venerate Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev, Russian clergy call him a saint, and Patriarch Kirill himself calls him a martyr. But when others who are not Russian do so, this supposedly proves that those they disagree with do not understand Russia. However, all that this shows is that these individuals understand neither their country nor holy Orthodoxy, embracing Orthodoxy only through a superficial cultural and nationalistic manner; Russia first, Orthodoxy second.
Objection 4: “You laud Greek nationalism but condemn Russian nationalism”
As stated in the book and in the previous objection: nationalism is not Orthodox and is not supported by the book in any form. It does not laud any form of nationalism. Unfortunately, the pattern continues to emerge; a persistent desire to put words in our mouths, rather than to read and understand what was carefully communicated.
We would ask those with these objections to read what will be explained to them now very closely.
Nationalism is not Orthodox. It does not matter whether it’s Greek, or Russian, or Serbian. Again, please read the above definition of nationalism as provided by Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev before you sprint to respond, and read the appropriate chapter in the book.
Nationalism is different from praise of a nation in its service to humanity, without despising or devaluing any nation. In THOPK an explanation is provided to clearly distinguish service from national superiority.
We entreat those who are objecting: what more must we do, than present these positions in a chapter for you to read and accept it?
In THOPK, we quote Philo, who is identified as a Hellenized Jewish philosopher who is stated to have “overpraised” Greece. Where is he being celebrated for this? Can those who are putting words in our mouths show where he is being presented as a saint or made his praise a dogmatic standard?
The surrounding discussion was making a comparison: even granting Philo’s praise of Greece, does it follow that the Greek nation is indispensable to Orthodoxy, or that its military survival holds back the Antichrist? It does not. Nor does praise of Russia establish those claims for Russia. The book then gives the same criterion for judging every nation: its service to humanity, without despising or devaluing other nations. That context is in the chapter on the Russian World and ethnophyletism. This of course is never addressed.
So the question is not whether a nation may be loved, but on what grounds Patriarch Kirill claims for Russia what the saints claim for no nation: a special role in salvation history, and a war that washes away sins.
Love for one’s country and gratitude for its service to Christianity are not the error we condemn. Even the Greek elders and saints we quote make the same distinction as Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev.
Since these individuals cannot read the book, here is Metropolitan Augoustinos explaining it, in the book that they are supposedly reviewing:
The most important [measure of a nation] is measured in terms of quantity and quality of service that it contributes to humanity. Not in coercing or exploiting the world through power but serving it materially and spiritually, this is the ideal to which every man and every nation must look to.
We do not despise or devalue any nation. Every nation has a place under the sun, as does every man. And every nation can develop the gifts that are given to it and contribute to the progress of humanity.
— Metropolitan Augoustinos Kantiotes, The Greek Nation (1998), pp. 13, 17
God has always used nations, languages, and cultures in the service of the Gospel. However, that service never gives a nation spiritual superiority by blood, destiny, or power. THOPK documents why Kirill’s claims for Russia cross that line.
And we have a beloved Serbian saint confirming this as well, which is also plainly in the book:
Slavophilism is of no value in itself, except as the bearer and vessel of Orthodoxy. […] Therefore, real Orthodox can never be chauvinists.
If we were to crystallize this principle of Vladyka, it would read as follows: the Russian, Serbian, and Bulgarian nations can be great only if the goal of their existence be the collective realization of the commandments of the Gospel. Otherwise, “Serbianism,” “Russianism,” and “Bulgarianism” are reduced to senseless and pernicious chauvinism. If “Serbianism” flourishes not by the power of evangelical podvigs and not to Orthodox catholicity, then it will choke in its own egoistic chauvinism. What is profitable for Serbdom is profitable for other Orthodox nationalities as well. Nations pass, the Gospel is eternal. Only in so far as a nation is filled with the eternal evangelical truth and righteousness, does it exist, and itself becomes and remains eternal.
— St. Justin (Popovich), “The Mystery of the Personality of Metropolitan Anthony,” Orthodox Life, Vol. 34, No. 5 (1984), pp. 39–40
St. Justin himself speaks of a nation becoming and remaining eternal. There is no issue with this. But what is the context here? He ties this to its life in Gospel truth and righteousness. An enduring national calling is not (simply because it endures), a claim of superiority by ancestry.
Let us be attentive; is the nuance clear here?
The question around this enduring calling, is what that calling consists in. The book applies the same distinction to Russian, Greek, and Serbian claims, without stint. So, why are people claiming otherwise? They want you to believe they read the book… but did they? Did they understand it?
In a time where people can barely hold their attention to read a book, we understand our objectors’ impetus to quickly read and skim through the work provided for them to read. However, if they had read the book, they would understand that the introduction to the very book itself expresses love for the Russian Church and recognizes the saints Russia has given to Orthodoxy. So, if supposedly only “Greek nationalism” is being praised, then how do those making this accusation explain the very introduction to the book, outside of them simply not reading it?
We accept this praise of Russia on the same grounds that we accept praise of Greece: service to Christianity. Neither gives a nation supremacy over other peoples or establishes that the Church’s future depends on its military power.
St. John of Shanghai writes:
For Russia and the Russian people, regardless of all the various deviations and even downfalls, its primary focus was to serve truth and to stand fast in the Faith. When we recall ancient Greece, the words of Apostle Paul come to mind: “The Greeks seek after wisdom”, although there were, of course, many among them who did not seek after wisdom.
— St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, Sermons and Writings of Saint John, Book 1, p. 52
In a sermon on Russia’s martyrs, St. John of Shanghai likewise writes:
Among the multitude of saints that Russia has given, there were many hierarchs and monks, righteous men and fools for Christ’s sake.
— St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, “A Few Words About Russia and Her Martyrs,” February 1963, Sermons and Writings of Saint John, Book 4, p. 9
Again, we must ask these “reviewers” who put words in the mouths of others:
Where does the book present speaking positively of one’s nation and its contributions in a negative light?
Where does the book disagree with Russian saints speaking positively about Russia’s service to Christianity?
Where does the book say that acknowledging Russia’s contributions is wrong?
Presenting praise that the book itself accepts as though it refutes an argument against it is a straw man. These objections must actually answer what the book says.
Here is the stance of the book repeated for them: nationalism is wrong in any form. Praise for one’s country and acknowledgment of one’s country’s contributions to Christianity and humanity is absolutely fine… but this is not what nationalism is. Please go read the quote from Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev again, and read it carefully.
We were also given examples of St. Nektarios’s words that were supposedly in favor of nationalism. But his own text is praising Greece’s service, so this is entirely within the framework presented in the book.
Shall we prove it?
St. Nektarios connects the Greek’s teaching role to love of neighbor and the desire to share what is good and true. He writes, in translation, that the Greek “did not seek slaves but free people.” He also describes other peoples becoming Greek through philosophy: participation in a teaching, not a privilege confined to ancestry. And he explicitly explains that Greek philosophy could not save humanity or be its final goal. It served as preparation for Christianity.[9]
So again, we see that in no way does this contradict any part of what has been stated in the book, and again, we ourselves presented the witness of St. Nektarios. They present it as new evidence, simply because it is new to them, and this is the entire issue.
St. Nektarios describes the enduring calling of Greece and connects the continuance of Hellenism with its teaching vocation and its union with the work of Christianity. Where have we drawn from all of this, a doctrine that Greek ancestry makes someone spiritually superior, or makes them the Katechon, or gives Greeks permanent authority over other peoples? In fact, THOPK explicitly says that the Church is organized by faith, rather than ethnicity, and gives the same standard for every nation.
All we can do is call people to simply read the book that is clearly being ignored and dismissed by those who are content with conjuring up arguments based on their reflexes and feelings.
Objection 5: “You misrepresented Kirill’s statement about forgiveness of sins”
The objection is that the book strips Kirill’s promise of its qualifications: he says “if someone,” speaks of duty and an oath, and describes dying for others rather than killing. It also argues that he never says “Russian” and that “someone” could include a Ukrainian soldier. On that basis, it accuses the book of distorting his words and adopting a politically motivated interpretation.[10]
The book prints Patriarch Kirill’s words in Russian with an English translation. Here is the relevant passage again:
Мы знаем, что сегодня многие погибают на полях междоусобной брани. Церковь молится о том, чтобы брань сия закончилась как можно быстрее, чтобы как можно меньше братьев убили друг друга в этой братоубийственной войне. И одновременно Церковь осознает, что если кто-то, движимый чувством долга, необходимостью исполнить присягу, остается верным своему призванию и погибает при исполнении воинского долга, то он, несомненно, совершает деяние, равносильное жертве. Он себя приносит в жертву за других. И потому верим, что эта жертва смывает все грехи, которые человек совершил.
We know that today many are perishing on the fields of internecine warfare. The Church prays that this warfare will end as quickly as possible, that as few brothers as possible will kill each other in this fratricidal war. And at the same time, the Church realizes that if someone, moved by a sense of duty, the necessity to fulfill an oath, remains faithful to their calling and perishes in the performance of military duty, they undoubtedly perform an act equivalent to sacrifice. They offer themselves as a sacrifice for others. And therefore we believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins that a person has committed.
— Patriarch Kirill, sermon on the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 25, 2022, https://www.patriarchia.ru/article/103723
In the above passage, Patriarch Kirill says “if someone,” and describes duty, an oath, faithfulness to one’s calling, and death in military service. THOPK printed those qualifications. It does not replace dying with killing. With those qualifications included, Patriarch Kirill still says that this sacrifice “washes away all the sins that a person has committed.” The question is whether fulfilling those military obligations makes death in war a means of washing away every prior sin. Duty, an oath, and sacrifice are the qualifications the response invokes; it still needs to explain how they establish that promise.
Further, we must always examine the context in which a statement is given. When we read patristic texts where our saints studied the Bible and other patristic examples, we see that they paid close attention not just to what was said, but to the context of what was said. In the pursuit of defending Patriarch Kirill, however, there are certain Orthodox Christians who want us to throw this context out and do things differently from our Holy Fathers.
So, what is the context here?
Kirill was addressing his flock at a service near Moscow during Russia’s war. Before that very sermon, he prayed for the soldiers defending “our Fatherland” and asked God to “grant us victory by Thy power.”[11] Earlier that very month, he had identified Putin as “our” head of state and supreme commander and prayed for Russia’s strength.[12] The connection to Russian servicemen, therefore, comes from Kirill’s own prayers and statements. It is not something we supplied in place of his words. The words “if someone” do not expressly exclude every other combatant, but they of course do not erase whom he was encouraging or whose victory he was seeking.
Two claims are at work here, and they should be kept apart. The first concerns the Russian servicemen he was encouraging, which we answer above. The second concerns the promise itself: that dying while fulfilling military duty washes away sins. The reports below corroborate that reading of his words. Whether that promise is Orthodox is answered by the patristic evidence in Chapter 17: Does Dying in War Wash Away All Our Sins?, regardless of the soldiers’ nationality. Did Russian reporters at Kommersant also misrepresent him when they described the sermon as promising forgiveness of sins to those dying in the fighting in Ukraine? Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that those sacrificing themselves while fulfilling their oath would wash away all sins. The Moscow Times, Russian edition, RFE/RL, Orthodox Times, and Aleteia reported the same central claim. Did these Russian publications also misrepresent him? If their reading is wrong, explain why. Calling us Russophobes answers none of them.
The book also distinguishes his quotation from the headlines reporting it. When we present the interpretation of “Russian soldiers”, we simply are citing these publications[13]; nowhere have these been presented as his verbatim words. Presenting the actual context of his statement doesn’t mean we altered his quotation or misrepresented it. See the chapter “Does Dying in War Wash Away All Our Sins?”.
But let us pretend that this context doesn’t exist for a second.
It is true that our reading identifies the Russian soldiers he was encouraging from the context of his sermon, prayers, and statements. The objection appeals to “someone” to argue that his promise is not confined to them. But that still doesn’t help Patriarch Kirill: if that word is supposed to establish a broader promise, what excludes the Muslims also fighting in this war? They too can fulfill an oath, remain faithful to their military calling, and die performing their duty. As we have laid out in the book, Patriarch Kirill has himself lauded Muslims for fighting and dying in this war for the sake of Russia.[14]
If the argument is that he did not say Russians, ignoring the context, then it must be admitted that he did not say Orthodox Christians either.
As difficult as this is for some to believe, not all Russians are Orthodox Christians. There are Muslims who are Russian citizens, and they are fighting in this war. These are his own words, from his June 14, 2025 address in which he ordered his clergy to drive away anyone who would warn about Islam:[14]
Сколько мусульман сейчас погибает, защищая Родину!
How many Muslims are now dying, defending the Motherland!
— Patriarch Kirill, address to clergy of the Kaliningrad Metropolia, June 14, 2025, https://www.patriarchia.ru/article/116138
These Muslims died having never been reconciled to Christ or His Church, and he lauds their deaths for their homeland; this is absolutely irrefutable. But as THOPK sets out, martyrdom does not apply to those outside the Orthodox faith. What, then, about their salvation?
So here is the logic Patriarch Kirill’s defenders are asking us to accept. First, ignore the clear context of his statements in the aggregate, which is directed at the Russian people. Second, also ignore that “someone” includes the Russian Muslims whose deaths he has praised, or else be told that this does not matter. Third, having been told that context is irrelevant, accept their “own” context instead: he was speaking only to Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians. Each step requires retreating from the one before it.
Even if the promise were addressed only to canonical Orthodox Christians, the theological question would remain: where does the Church teach that dying while fulfilling military duty washes away every prior sin? That is the question answered by the patristic evidence in Chapter 17: Does Dying in War Wash Away All Our Sins?.
Metropolitan Eugene of Tallinn and All Estonia, then a metropolitan under Kirill, rejected precisely this promise:[15]
Я не разделяю слова Святейшего Патриарха Кирилла, произнесённые им в проповеди 25.09.2022, об отпущении всех грехов военнослужащим, погибшим при исполнении воинского долга.
I do not share the words of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, spoken in his sermon on September 25, 2022, about the absolution of all sins of military personnel who died in the performance of military duty.
— Metropolitan Eugene of Tallinn and All Estonia, response to the Estonian Ministry of Internal Affairs, https://orthodox.ee/articles/otvet-mitropolita-tallinskogo-i-vseja-estonii-jevgenija-na-pismo-iz-mvd-ot-07-10-2022/, our translation
Did the metropolitan under Kirill also misrepresent him when he rejected that promise? Will those preoccupied with nationality call him a Russophobe too? His statement does not settle whom Kirill was addressing; it shows that the promise itself was rejected within his own jurisdiction. Broadening the audience does not answer that objection. At that point there is nothing left but arguments about what he intended, from people who are never so forgiving of anyone they do not favor, and who tell others to correct their statements while never allowing a word of Patriarch Kirill’s to be corrected. They are simply tribalists arguing against those they do not like, while excusing a Patriarch whom they revere.
That is what this whole exercise is: an effort to gaslight, to present the relevant context as misrepresentation, and to keep an incoherent defense up by retreating to a new line of justification whenever the previous one is answered.
Saying he meant Russians and Ukrainians is not good enough. These individuals cannot simply supply the qualification needed to rescue his inappropriate statement. Broadening its scope does not answer the core theological problem: it requires the defender to explain whom the promised remission includes exactly according to Patriarch Kirill, and why. They refuse to do this, because they can’t.
Finally: the book’s evidence of ethnophyletism extends beyond this sermon. If we have cited 100 problems with Kirill, such responses are equivalent to them arguing with one of them, while expressly ignoring the other 99. Is there an actual purpose of doing this other than to nitpick?
By itself the objection is petty, but even if it were substantial, it still would not address the overwhelming corpus of evidence presented here.
Objection 6: “You presented Kirill’s words as a direct murderous threat”
One of the responses we saw accused us of presenting Patriarch Kirill’s words as a “direct murderous threat.”[16]
Here is what the book actually says:
In his January 2023 Christmas sermon at the Kremlin, Patriarch Kirill turned from cosmic framing to explicit threat:
The book says “explicit threat.” It does not say “direct murderous threat.” The preceding comparison helps make clear what we were presenting as Patriarch Kirill’s prediction:
Где тот обновленческий раскол, которому власть передавала всё? Где те идеи, которые насаждались среди православных людей, чтобы отлучить их от Церкви? Всё прошло, следа даже нет. Вот так же будет на Украине — следа не останется от раскольников, потому что они выполняют злую, диавольскую волю, разрушая Православие на Киевской земле.
Where is that Renovationist schism to which the government handed over everything? Where are those ideas that were planted among Orthodox people to separate them from the Church? Everything has passed, not a trace is left. It will be the exact same way in Ukraine — there will be no trace left of the schismatics, because they are fulfilling the devil’s evil bidding, destroying Orthodoxy on Kyivan land.
— Patriarch Kirill, sermon at the Dormition Cathedral, Moscow Kremlin, January 8, 2023, https://www.patriarchia.ru/article/104111
Patriarch Kirill compares the Ukrainian schism to the Renovationist schism and predicts that it, too, will disappear. He does not explicitly say that its adherents will be physically exterminated. But predicting that “no trace” of them will remain during a war he actively supports is threatening.[17]
Question: why is the objection directed at our description of the statement, while the patriarch’s prediction that no trace of the schismatics will remain during a war he supports goes unanswered?
The chapter’s evidence that Kirill presents this war as sacred comes from his own statements. It does not depend on reading this sentence as a threat of physical extermination. How does this objection answer those statements, or the book’s separate evidence concerning forgiveness of sins through military death and ethnophyletism?
Objection 7: “You used non-authoritative canons attributed to Hippolytus”
Let us examine the exact way this quote was introduced:
The same pattern appears in the so-called Canons of Hippolytus, an early Egyptian church order. Whatever its exact authorship (as its validity is contested), it reflects the mind of the early Church on war and bloodshed.
— The Heresy of Patriarch Kirill, “Does Dying in War Wash Away All Our Sins?”
The book itself calls these the “so-called” canons and acknowledges their contested validity. How is repeating that qualification proof that we concealed it?
Here is the canon in question:
A Christian is not to become a soldier. A Christian must not become a soldier, unless he is compelled by a chief bearing the sword. He is not to burden himself with the sin of blood. But if he has shed blood, he is not to partake of the mysteries, unless he is purified by a punishment, tears, and wailing. He is not to come forward deceitfully but in the fear of God.
— The Canons of Hippolytus, Canon 14, ed. Paul Bradshaw, trans. Carol Bebawi (Gorgias Press, 2010), p. 18
The text was included only as historical evidence of how an early Egyptian Christian community regarded war and bloodshed; not as a binding canon for the whole Church. THOPK does not make its argument solely on this proof, but draws independently on St. Nikodemos, the Apostolic Constitutions, St. Basil the Great, and the broader witness of our saints and elders concerning the gravity of bloodshed, legitimate defense, and the distinction between military death and martyrdom.
Thus, there is a methodological confusion in those who are attempting to engage:
As the introduction explains, the arguments of the book rest on the wider patristic witness. We present multiple sources so that readers can examine their agreement and the qualifications each supplies in the aggregate. A limitation in one sole source should be examined… but repeating a limitation the book already acknowledges does not refute the argument supported by the other sources. Which part of that wider witness has been answered?
Objection 8: “The Church permits war and honors military saints”
In some responses to THOPK, many stated that the Church is not a pacifist association, that it permits participation in a just war, and that it honors military saints and prays for victory.[18]
The book THOPK discusses both the Church’s permission for war under particular conditions and its veneration of military saints such as St. Demetrios the Myrrh-Gusher.
Neither has been disputed. Therefore, for the most part, these are all non-responses.
As for participation in war being a good thing, it must be understood that even objectively good things given by the Church can be misused and lead to one’s condemnation. For instance, Holy Communion is certainly good, yet St. Paul warns that a person can receive it to his own condemnation! (1 Corinthians 11:27–29). Therefore, context and circumstances always must be examined, as this can make the difference between whether something is used for good or evil.
What is being condemned then is not war in the absolute sense, but a war fought without sufficient justification, according to our saints.
Disagreeing with a particular war does not make someone a pacifist. Our saints and elders did not agree with every war. Treating it that way is a sorry attempt at displacing the actual argument being made.
This is the question that must be answered: is this war justified? Not war in general. This is what is examined in depth, but this examination is very specifically being ignored.
Prayers for victory
THOPK was also accused of presenting the Church’s prayers as asking for the prevention of war and the soldiers’ salvation rather than military victory.[19]
It is true that the Church prays for the armed forces in its litanies, alongside petitions for peace and salvation.[20] The historical great litany includes this petition, followed by prayers for the community and peaceful times:
To aid them and to subdue under their feet every enemy and adversary, let us pray to the Lord.
For this city (if it is a monastery, For this holy habitation), for every city and country, and for them that in faith dwell therein, let us pray to the Lord.
For healthiness of weather, for plentifulness of the fruits of the earth, and for peaceful times, let us pray to the Lord.
— Great Litany, in Book of Needs, trans. G. V. Shann (1894), Notes, p. XVI (PDF p. 24)
The troparion and kontakion of the Cross, included in the opening of Matins, likewise say:[21]
O Lord, save thy people, and bless thine inheritance, granting to the most God-fearing (Emperor, King, or President), N., victory over all adversaries, and by thy Cross preserving thine Estate.
Do thou who, of thine own good will, upon the Cross wast lifted up, bestow thy bounties upon the new State which is called by thy Name, O Christ, our God; make glad with thy might our most God-fearing (Emperor, King, or President), N., granting victory over his adversaries unto him who hath thine aid, which is a panoply of peace, a trophy invincible.
— Troparion and kontakion of the Cross, opening of Matins, in Service Book, trans. Isabel Florence Hapgood (1906), p. 17 (PDF p. 55)
These hymns ask for a God-fearing ruler’s victory, the preservation of the state, and the aid of the Cross, a “panoply of peace.” The litanies also ask for peace, salvation, and deliverance from affliction.
So yes, the Church prays for military victory. But again, we must entreat: context cannot be simply discarded on account of it being inconvenient. So what is the context of these above prayers then?
Let us examine the Greek:
The Greek troparion says “νίκας τοῖς Βασιλεῦσι κατὰ βαρβάρων δωρούμενος”: granting victories to the kings against barbarians.[22]
That wording matters, because the word “barbarians” throughout tradition has always meant outsiders. Such words were never applied to Orthodox Christians. We cannot detach the prayer from the defense of the Christian people and the Christian faith, then apply it to whoever a ruler chooses to call his enemy.
The book’s chapter on self-defense already explains this through the saints. St. Nikodemos, commenting on Canon XIII of St. Basil, writes:
Those men who slay men in the course of war are fighting for the faith and for the maintenance of sobriety. For, if once the barbarians and infidels should succeed in gaining the upper hand, neither piety will be left, since they disregard it and seek to establish their own wicked faith and bad belief, nor sobriety and maintenance of honor, seeing that their victory would be followed by many instances of violation and ravishment of young women and of young men.
— St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite, The Rudder (published edition), commentary on Canon XIII of St. Basil, linked PDF pp. 1468–1469
St. Nikodemos presents a binary here. He speaks of those fighting for the faith on one hand, and barbarians on the other. Simple process of elimination should convey then, that one cannot fight for the faith and be a barbarian at the same time. So, when the victory prayer set in Greek asks for kings to have victory over adversaries, this was never meant to be used to justify one Orthodox nation going to war with another Orthodox nation, and this was never the context in which these arguments were used.
St. Theodore the Studite likewise urges the emperors to defend Christians against those attacking them:[23]
And this is good, and even now we urge this very same thing: that the emperors should fight the Scythians and Arabs who are killing the people of God, and should not spare them.
— St. Theodore the Studite, Letter 455 to Theophilos of Ephesus, Greek text, our translation
This is the defense the book describes: protecting Orthodox Christians and their faith against non-Orthodox attackers. The saints explain who is being defended, against whom, and for what reason. The context is absolutely critical because this is the framework used by our saints.
Therefore, how does approval of that defense justify invading another Orthodox country and killing Orthodox Christians? Where do the responses show that this invasion meets the conditions the book lays out for war?
Those objecting have repeatedly shown their lack of interest in spending the time or energy to understand the arguments in the book. They have simply skipped to the conclusion and disagreed mostly with this, while ignoring the patristic arguments used to establish these very conclusions.
Quoting a prayer for victory does not remove the conditions for a war to be called self-defense. It does not make every campaign a ruler undertakes just, or tell us that Russia’s invasion is a righteous war. These arguments must be made against the overwhelming evidence that it is not a righteous war, but the objections do not attempt to do that.
Objection 9: “Here is an example of saints killing people, therefore the book is wrong”
One example of refusing to engage with the book is seen through citing examples of saints that killed, as though this makes the argument for war. St. Constantine, St. Mercurius, and St. Theodosia are offered as examples.[24]
Again, as in previous objections: THOPK itself already presents numerous examples of killing and violence:
Old Testament warfare
St. Lazar’s defense of his people at Kosovo
Lives of the military saints
So the objections don’t really bring anything new to the table.
These examples are in the book because the circumstances of these examples matter. An objection must then address how the book distinguishes them as not suitable defenses, and not simply produce yet more instances of decontextualized violence.
Nowhere does THOPK say that military saints never killed anyone. What is examined, is what they are honored for, and the circumstances in which they acted. Being soldiers, or having killed, does not by itself confer sanctity or bestow a status of martyrdom. This is common sense.
In the Chapter “The Heavenly Kingdom: St. Lazar’s Choice”, a saint is presented taking up arms in defense of Christians. Elsewhere, it is explained why a particular command from God cannot become permission for anyone else to repeat the act. Let us examine these arguments again for the few that wish to read them.
Consider the military saints themselves. St. George, St. Demetrios, St. Theodore, and the Forty-Two Martyrs of Amorium. The Forty-Two were soldiers, but they are honored as martyrs for confessing Christ in captivity and refusing to abandon the faith. Their lives were supplied to show what they are honored for.[25]
Now consider the objection: an appeal to St. Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge as an example of divine aid in battle.[24]
What does that establish against the book?
THOPK does not deny that God can aid Christians in battle. It already gives examples of this. Showing another such event does not explain why this invasion is justified or why death in military service washes away sins.
Where is the argument connecting Constantine’s victory to either claim?
Another objection concerns St. Theodosia and others bringing down the official removing an icon, and his death in the process.[24]
However, this account concerns people using force to prevent the removal of a sacred object, not an attempt to kill: the official’s death was an indirect consequence of their action, not its aim or goal.
In “Can War Be Called Holy?”, the book asks for a hagiographic example of armed resistance to persecution. St. Theodosia did use force to resist the removal of an icon. If that question suggests that no saint ever resisted persecution by force, it is too broad. But how does that make Russia’s invasion holy? How does it establish that dying in military service washes away sins?
There are accounts of St. Paisios using physical force (violence) too! His biography describes him striking a young man across the face to correct his contempt for others, then treating him with affection.[26] But… what does that establish about a patriarch blessing an invasion? A slap, resistance to iconoclasm, and a defensive battle are not interchangeable evidence for war. Presenting them merely to disprove absolute nonviolence is an absolute red herring and a strawman. That is not the book’s position, so what are they arguing against but their own imagination?
Additionally, THOPK already answers the same reasoning in its discussion of Old Testament warfare. A command given by God in a particular case is not ipso facto, “by that very fact,” permission for anyone else to repeat the act. Does Abraham moving to kill his son to show his faith give us permission to follow him and to kill our own children? Were James and John not rebuked when they asked to call down fire from heaven, citing Elijah’s example? See “When Can War Be Considered Self-Defense?”.
Context matters. Those who cannot understand the nuance of context in patristic texts and interpret matters simply through their feelings are not honoring our saints and should be very wary, understanding that nuance escapes them.
Another objection was that citing God’s refusal to let David build the temple because he had shed much blood and fought great wars (1 Chronicles 22:8) would supposedly prevent warrior emperors from building churches.[27] But nowhere was a rule proposed that disqualified every ruler who had fought a war from building a church. The self-defense chapter cites David’s exclusion from building the temple simply to show why even wars within the history of God’s people cannot simply be treated as a warrant for modern bloodshed. Listing emperors who built churches in no way answers the actual use of the passage.
St. Nikolai’s War and the Bible was also cited as a refutation of our argument. No particular passage was given from it. [28] THOPK already cites St. Nikolai on war. No passage is offered that overturns the book’s arguments.
Another objection goes that Christ commanded St. Mercurius to kill Julian. However, this describes a posthumous intervention: Mercurius had already suffered martyrdom and was a saint. Surely these people understand that a command given to a saint in heaven is different than an order given to a living soldier to wage war, do they not? The account cited against the book places him before Christ in heaven; the saint’s life likewise identifies his intervention against Julian as occurring after his death.[29] Details matter.
Orthodox Christians cannot treat orders given to them by a Patriarch as commands from Christ. It is ridiculous to even need to explain this.
Our saints do not teach that patriarchs are infallible. They teach quite the opposite. St. John Moschos records a vision in which Theophanes, a visitor to Abba Cyriacus, sees Nestorius, Dioscorus, and Severus among those in the fire. These men had occupied the patriarchal sees of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. Their office did not make their teaching true or place them beyond judgment.[30]
Another one of these faulty examples is given in a response: an angel striking the Assyrian army to deliver Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:35).
Forgive us, but do these people imagine themselves to be angels? Apparently, to these warmongers, any act of violence from the saints or angels is a blanket permission slip to wage any war and that those who disagree are pacifists.
The appeal to these accounts also turns their lesson on its head. In the life of St. Mercurius, St. Basil prays for deliverance from Julian’s persecution; the rescue comes through divine intervention, not an uprising he organizes.[29] The Assyrian army is likewise struck down by an angel, not defeated by the military strength of those being delivered. If these accounts are supposed to teach Christians where to place their trust, why turn them into an argument for trusting the power of the state? They show that God can preserve His people without their taking up arms. How does that become a reason to insist that they must?
The book supplies most of these distinctions alongside the examples. Thus, it would be helpful for those presenting these objections to read the examples given to them, before presenting more evidence.
“What about this saint?” and “What about this example?” don’t answer the core question: how and why do those circumstances apply here? And in most cases, as is clearly shown, they do not apply to the situation at all.
Objection 10: “The Church’s teaching on soldiers supports Kirill’s promise”
We are told that St. Basil and the bishops’ refusal to recognize fallen soldiers as martyrs does not support our argument. Additionally, St. Theophan’s language about a path of martyrdom is offered in support of Kirill as some sort of defense.[31]
This is a repeated misunderstanding. Permitting Christians to fight under particular conditions is one question. Promising that death in military service washes away all their sins is another. Where does the Church teach what Kirill promises? So these refutations do little to make this point.
St. Basil, penance, and martyrdom
THOPK quotes St. Basil’s qualification directly:
Homicide in war is not reckoned by our Fathers as homicide; I presume from their wish to make concession to men fighting on behalf of chastity and true religion. Perhaps, however, it is well to counsel that those whose hands are not clean only abstain from communion for three years.
— St. Basil the Great, First Canonical Epistle to Amphilochius (Letter 188, Canon 13), https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202188.htm
St. Basil does not classify this killing as ordinary murder, but he still describes the hands as unclean and counsels abstention from Communion. Zonaras and Balsamon are cited on the difficulty of applying the three-year abstention during continuous campaigns.[31] Zonaras goes further: why should those defending their brethren against captivity not be judged clean in their hands? He questions the moral judgment itself, as well as the application of the penance. Yet he does not say that military death washes away all prior sins. His own account preserves the bishops’ refusal to treat the fallen collectively as martyrs.
The book supplies that account:
But that this Canon of the Saint was accepted by the Church as a declarative Canon, and a definition, and a law, and not as a simple piece of indecisive advice, is a fact which is attested by the events which ensued in the reign of Nicephoros Phocas and which are recorded by both the expositors Zonaras and Balsamon, and by Dositheos (page 533 of his Dodecabiblus).
For that Emperor had sought in his time to have Christian soldiers numbered with the martyrs, and to be honored and glorified as martyrs, when they were killed in war with barbarians. But the Patriarch and Synod of Bishops in that period were opposed to this idea, and failing to convince the Emperor, they finally proposed this Canon of the Saint as a Canon of the Church, asking, “Are we going to number with the Martyrs men who have killed others in war and whom Basil the Great excluded from the Mysteries for three years as not having clean hands?”
— The Rudder, commentary on Canon 13 of St. Basil the Great, ed. D. Cummings (1957), printed p. 803; corresponding passage in the linked electronic edition, PDF p. 1550
Another objection is that Kirill did not request the soldiers’ canonization.[31] But the book examines what he attributes to their death: the washing away of all sins. That is why it discusses martyrdom and the bishops’ refusal to treat military death alone as grounds for it. How does pointing out that Kirill did not request canonization answer what he promised?
Relaxing a penance does not turn the act for which it was prescribed into a means of washing away every sin.
Another objection goes as follows: THOPK looks at the impediment of killing as being clearly sinful, on account of being an impediment to the priesthood. We are given examples where blindness and deafness are also impediments, but are not sinful, thus the objection is that the analogy presented is underwhelming.[32]
But the book does not say that killing is sinful because it impedes the priesthood, and blindness or deafness are not described as bloodguilt or unclean hands. The impediment follows from the shedding of blood: St. Gregory of Nyssa prescribes purification even for involuntary killing, and St. Nikodemos records the Church’s stricter standard alongside its pastoral concessions. Bloodguilt stains the soul and can bar a man from the priesthood. Blindness or deafness may impede ordination without being sins. The point is the reason for the impediment, not merely its existence. Why are those explanations passed over?[25]
Nikephoros Phokas’s instructions for priests to pray with the army and for soldiers to receive the Mysteries before battle are also offered in Kirill’s defense.[33] Yet the bishops rejected that same emperor’s proposal to recognize the fallen as martyrs. Preparing soldiers spiritually for battle did not mean that dying in it would make them martyrs.
What St. Theophan actually says
St. Theophan requires closer attention because he does speak of a path of martyrdom:
Воины за дело Божие воюющие идут мученическою дорогою. Наша же война воистину идет за дело Божие.
Warriors fighting for the cause of God walk the path of martyrdom. Our war is truly for the cause of God.
— St. Theophan the Recluse, https://xpa-spb.ru/libr/Feofan-Zatvornik/sobranie-pisem-5-783.html, concerning the recipient’s son at Plevna; Collected Letters, issue 5 (Moscow, 1899; reprint 2000); English translation reproduced in the response, https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2026/06/church-and-war-defense-of-patriarch.html
We need not weaken this into a figure of speech to answer it. Metropolitan Clement reads the passage as allowing a martyr’s crown for a soldier killed in that righteous cause.[34] What made the cause righteous matters. St. Theophan explains further in his other letter concerning the same war:
Но как мы не за себя поднимаем оружие, а в помощь христианам: то можно не терять надежды, что Господь явит нам милость свою и даст успех. – Епитимиею же за грехи наши Он примет самый труд и тяготу войны. Только надо приложить покаяние.
But since we take up arms not for ourselves, but to help Christians, we can remain hopeful that the Lord will show us His mercy and grant us success. He will accept the very toil and burden of war as penance for our sins. We only need to add repentance.
— St. Theophan the Recluse, https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Feofan_Zatvornik/sobranie-pisem-iz-neopublikovannogo/5, April 19, 1877; English translation reproduced in the response, https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2026/06/church-and-war-defense-of-patriarch.html
“Not for ourselves,” “to help Christians,” and “add repentance.” These belong to St. Theophan’s explanation too and line up with the nuance presented in THOPK, and do not line up with Patriarch Kirill or this war.
St. Theophan also speaks of the toil and burden of war as penance and expressly calls for repentance. That is different from promising that death while fulfilling duty and an oath washes away all previously committed sins.
How and why then, does St. Theophan’s judgment apply to this invasion? The book’s self-defense chapter examines whether this war meets those conditions! Appealing to a saint’s approval of helping Christians does not answer that chapter. Nor does his call for repentance supply a condition missing from Kirill’s promise.
A soldier can become a saint. A Christian can die defending the innocent. Neither fact establishes that military service itself makes someone holy, or that dying under duty and oath “washes away all the sins that a person has committed.” That is the claim to be defended. Answering a pacifist argument the book clearly does not make is absolutely irrelevant.
Objection 11: “Russia’s invasion was defensive”
This is not a response to the book.
The claim that Russia’s war is defensive comes with an express refusal to examine the book’s political and historical arguments.[35] The book did not simply announce that the invasion was not defensive. It explained why it was not defensive, and this explanation was completely ignored. How does refusing to examine that explanation serve as an answer?
Chapter 20: When Can War Be Considered Self-Defense? examines whom the war protects, what aggression it answers, whether force is necessary, and whether it causes less harm than the alternatives. It reads St. Basil’s reference to chastity and true religion alongside the other sources on protecting Christians and the innocent. It also distinguishes defense from political or territorial ambition and explains why even justified force calls for a sober, penitential response. These are the criteria the book applies to this war.[36]
The conditions for defense
Metropolitan Anthony states the distinction plainly:
But let them get it into their heads that I am not praising war nor justifying it, but that I consider it a lesser evil than if kings, governments, nations, and individual citizens had declined it in such a situation as that which prevailed two years ago.
— Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), https://www.rocorstudies.org/2016/11/16/the-christian-faith-and-war/
This is already in the book. A lesser evil (war) does not become a spiritual good simply because the alternative is worse. Likewise, St. Paisios’s desire not to kill shows how seriously he regarded bloodshed. It was not presented as a command that every defender surrender.
St. Athanasius calls destroying enemies in war lawful and praiseworthy; St. Ambrose praises courage that protects the vulnerable; St. Augustine distinguishes authorized, just killing from violation of the commandment. Nowhere has this been argued against, so we can’t understand why we are being told that this is what they disagree with the book on.
These saints approved particular acts under particular conditions. That is the argument.
Their approval for war under specific conditions does not make every war sacred or make a soldier’s death remit all prior sins as Patriarch Kirill has stated.[37]
The book already prints and discusses St. Athanasius’s passage in “When Can War Be Considered Self-Defense?”. His use of warfare as an analogy does not erase the words “lawful and praiseworthy.” But this invasion still has to meet the conditions.
We are also accused of missing St. Theodore’s subject: the persecution of heretical subjects, [38] however, the chapter very clearly explicitly identifies that context. St. Theodore explicitly distinguishes Orthodox Christians fighting foreign forces to protect other Orthodox Christians from the persecution of heretical subjects. The book quotes this distinction, yet the objection does not address how we use it. Pointing out that Theodore opposes persecuting heretics does not answer what he says about defending Orthodox Christians against foreign attackers. This part of the explanation is passed over in silence.[23]
Nor does the chapter depend on that letter alone, as with every other chapter. It reads St. Theodore alongside St. Basil, St. Nikodemos, and St. Nikolai.[36] What about the rest of that evidence?
An appeal is also made to a dispute involving St. Nikephoros, St. Theophanes, and St. Theophilos over the treatment of the Paulicians.[38] The sources need to be read more carefully than a list of saints supposedly opposing St. Theodore. Theophanes’s chronicle supports punitive measures; Theodore’s letter answers Theophilos’s defense of permitting the killings. Yet in that same letter Theodore reports that the patriarch agreed when he said that “the Church does not avenge herself by the sword.”[38] We cannot turn these distinct testimonies into a single position held by all three.
St. Theodore distinguishes the punishment of violent crimes from the correction of religious error, which belongs to the Church. He also distinguishes both from fighting foreign attackers who are killing Christians. The historical dispute must be examined on those terms. Which of these accounts establishes that this invasion meets the conditions for defense, or that death in it washes away sins?
Fr. Valentin Sventsitsky describes civilians facing certain slaughter with no other means of protection.[39] The book does not say to abandon them. But whom is this invasion protecting, from whom, and was there another way? Those are precisely the questions that must be examined.
Repeating “defense of the innocent” also does not answer the book’s examination of those questions.[36] All wars that were evil often had leaders expressing how it was to protect the innocent, so this simply is not justification by itself. Where do the passages cited contradict its conditions for defense given by the saints, or establish that this invasion meets them?
Applying those conditions to this war
Fr. Valentin himself insists on examining the particular war, which proponents of this unjust war absolutely refused to do in any of their responses:
Речь идёт уже не о том, допустима или недопустима война в принципе, а какая именно война допустима. Здесь христианин стоит перед оценкой не самой войны, а тех целей, которые она преследует. Отсюда ясно, что христианство допускает войну во имя тех задач, которые совпадают с христианскими идеалами. В несправедливой войне «нехристианским» является не самая война, а та несправедливость, во имя которой она ведётся. И напротив, война благословляется Церковью только в той мере, в какой может быть благословенна её конечная цель.
It is no longer a matter of whether war is permissible or impermissible in principle, but rather which specific war is permissible. Here, the Christian stands before an evaluation not of war itself, but of the goals it pursues. From this, it is clear that Christianity permits war in the name of those tasks that coincide with Christian ideals. In an unjust war, it is not the war itself that is “unchristian,” but the injustice in whose name it is waged. And conversely, war is blessed by the Church only to the extent that its ultimate goal can be blessed.
— Confessor Archpriest Valentin Sventsitsky, War and Church, Part VI, Russian original; English translation reproduced in the response
Notice what Archpriest Valentin says here. He specifically says that war in general is not permissible or impermissible, and is based on the circumstances. That actually helps our argument, because this is the exact argument we’ve made, to look at the circumstances. And we must evaluate each war or potential war against Christian ideals, and that necessarily requires examining whether it meets the criteria of self-defense by looking at other wars and what the Church and its saints have taught us about them, and that requires examining history.
One published response explicitly announces that it will not examine the political and historical arguments of the book at all, which would help establish these ideals. [35]
Yet this response then declares Russia’s war defensive (begging the question), and quotes Fr. Valentin as an authority. But Fr. Valentin Sventsitsky requires examining the particular war and its goals, which requires it to be examined against other wars (history). Therefore, this criticism refuses the examination its own chosen authority demands!
Declining to examine the book’s argument while invoking an authority who insists it be examined is a sign of a mixture of cognitive dissonance, laziness, and a lack of understanding of nuance.
Take two examples already in the book. Russia invoked genocide to justify its intervention. The chapter cites the International Court of Justice’s March 2022 order, which stated that the Court did not possess evidence substantiating that allegation. It’s true that was a provisional-measures finding, not a final judgment on every allegation concerning the conflict. But the claim of genocide cannot simply be treated as established while this evidence is passed over.[40]
The chapter also cites Metropolitan Onuphry’s appeal on the first day of the invasion. The head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church called for Russia to end the fratricidal war and said it had no justification before God or men. His own Church was among those supposedly being protected. Its rejection of the invasion requires an answer; it cannot simply disappear from the account of whom Russia was defending.[41]
These are two examples from the chapter’s wider body of evidence. Citing a saint who approves legitimate defense does not answer any of this evidence which proves that it is not legitimate.
Again, there is an entire chapter on this. Why are its criteria and evidence left unanswered while the conclusion it disputes is simply repeated?
Objection 12: “You have shown errors, not heresy”
The book devotes a full chapter, “On Heresy, Synods, and Right Belief”, to this distinction. It expressly says, “Not every theological imprecision constitutes heresy,” and explains why the teachings examined cross that line. Where is the error in that explanation? Repeating a distinction the book already makes is not a correction.[42]
As for the fact that other patriarchs still commemorate Kirill, the book addresses that too. It distinguishes recognizing a heretical teaching from formally deposing its teacher, and agreement in the faith from a count of hierarchs. Continued commemoration does not by itself answer whether the teaching is Orthodox. Orthodoxy is not a matter of popular vote, nor will it ever be, and glory to God for that. Such people who think that more people doing something means that it is okay, unfortunately have little to no exposure to the lives of our saints and the theology of the Orthodox Church. Many of our saints were celebrated primarily because they had the correct opinion, not the popular one. One simply needs to examine the history of the Church and the great periods of heresy (Arianism, Iconoclasm) to be convinced of this.
This point ultimately would require us to simply repeat all of what has been communicated in the book, so we can only encourage individuals to go read it.
Objection 13: “I will only examine the theology”
Most responses didn’t examine much of the arguments of the book. One example of this personifies the matter completely, by saying the following sentence:[43]
I will not examine the political and historical arguments of the book at all.
This is a good point to respond to, because many people, also seemingly chose to not examine the greater nuance presented in the book, responding only superficially.
This response to the book in particular which stated this, in its very opening declares Russia’s war defensive. The way to easily disprove this would be to look at the historical evidence against it, but its author refuses to look at the historical evidence.
The book devotes an entire chapter, “When Can War Be Considered Self-Defense?”, to the conditions given by Orthodox saints and elders, and applies them to this invasion. Who is being defended, against whom, and under what circumstances? Was war a last resort? Would fighting prevent greater harm than it would cause? The chapter’s examination of those last two questions is not addressed at all in any of the responses the book received (including this particular response being examined). Simply asserting the war is defensive and not engaging with the evidence that would disprove this is another example of laziness and bad faith engagement on their part.
St. Theodore’s distinction between defending Orthodox Christians against foreign attackers and persecuting heretical subjects is part of that examination.
One additional question we might ask: what is supposedly “political” about examining whether the conditions the saint gives are met?
And yet, the response readily invokes American invasions, Ukrainian persecution, and Turkey’s invasion of Afrin, while accusing the authors of Russophobia.[43] Are these not political and historical claims?
The response even rejects the comparison with Russia’s invasion of Hungary because Russians were not living there and being persecuted.[43] So why do those circumstances matter when it’s important and relevant to them, while the book’s examination of the circumstances here can be passed over as supposedly “political”?
That is the hypocrisy here:
The saints’ qualifications about the circumstances of defense (supposedly “historical and political”) go unanswered.
The theology supposedly singled out for examination is misrepresented.
Having excluded the book’s supposedly “political and historical” arguments, the response hypocritically and immediately supplies its own.
The book’s supposedly “political and historical” arguments will not be examined, yet its conclusion about this war is rejected on its own political and historical grounds, all in the same opening paragraph.
The authors of these responses often tie themselves up in illogical positions where they contradict evidence that doesn’t suit them, and then also contradict even themselves, because the goal for them is not integrity nor consistency, but merely defending their interests.
B. Objections That Change the Subject
Objection 14: “Why do you criticize Kirill and not Bartholomew?”
In our book, it is very obvious that we are not favorable toward Patriarch Bartholomew, and in fact we very clearly criticize him, in more than just one chapter:
In “Recognition of the Pope”, we quote Elder Gabriel of Koutloumousiou’s rebuke of his ecumenical activities.
In “Russian World Ethnophyletism”, we describe Bartholomew as someone “who himself espouses much heresy.”
In “Understanding the Ukrainian Churches”, we examine his granting of autocephaly to schismatic groups and his reversal of the condemnations he had previously recognized. “Correct Critique Is Not a Bridge to Schism” explicitly says that he “uncanonically granted them a tomos of autocephaly.”
The book also contains an entire appendix presenting the canonical case against the OCU.
Therefore, such claims that we refuse to criticize Patriarch Bartholomew are repeated proofs of a conscious lack of desire to read and engage, and only to skim and misrepresent what is uncomfortable for them.[44]
It is one thing to disagree, but another to so overtly misrepresent someone’s position, especially when this is all readily available information that could have been read with patience and attention.
A comprehensive examination of another patriarch would require dedicated work, and its own text. We spent months gathering sources and bringing the current evidence together so that readers can examine one particular subject in-depth, and God willing, we will do the same with other subjects. However, we ask for a little sensibility here; we cannot write everything at once, can we?
What is truly interesting to us, is that throughout these objections, we see a clear willingness to pass over inconvenient arguments and evidence, while asking for engagement in arguments and evidence in other topics. Such individuals are walking contradictions: they cannot read what was painstakingly compiled for them, but immediately want more things written for them!
It is good to prefer to take the time to examine a specific subject properly. Imagining that this means approval of every other group not mentioned is dishonest or at best unintelligent.
In other responses, it was said that the book supports the Phanar, also ignoring our direct criticism of him and his own violating of the Holy Canons.[45]
In summary: even if we had said nothing about Bartholomew, his wrongdoing would not make Kirill’s teaching Orthodox. This is the matter the book focused on, and this is the matter they attempt to deflect away from. That being said, we in fact do criticize Patriarch Bartholomew; one simply needs to read, but it seems even this is too much to ask from Orthodox Christians in our times.
Objection 15: “But what about America? Why aren’t you criticizing your own government?”
It’s important to understand here that we have not written a political book. Every single chapter is centered around the teachings of the Orthodox Church and around matters of dogma and heresy. What exactly does America have to do with matters of dogma and heresy? How does writing about an Orthodox Christian Patriarch mean that we approve of the American government?
Nowhere in our book or elsewhere, do we excuse unjust wars or wrongdoing by the American government, or any government.
The American government does not teach in the Orthodox Church’s name. Patriarch Kirill does.[46]
What a patriarch teaches in the name of the Church, and whether the faithful should commemorate him, must concern Orthodox Christians much more than the actions of their government. The explanation for all of this is spelled out very clearly in our book.
The lives of the saints[47] repeatedly[48] showed them confronting[49] rulers[50] and hierarchs[51] who departed from the Orthodox faith.[52]
Why, then, should examining a patriarch’s teaching require one first to write about another government? The responsibility to defend the faith does not disappear because someone demands that we address another subject.
And so we often see even Orthodox Christians who focus too much on politics have their priorities mixed. To speak out against heresy is our responsibility. If they wish to be preoccupied with governments, they are free, but wanting others to disengage from matters of faith to engage in their same foolish preoccupation with politics rather than dogma is senseless.
Yet again in this situation, those responding to the book answer the evidence against Patriarch Kirill by changing the conversation. The pattern is familiar: when confronted with evidence, change the subject to the person raising it. “Well, what about your flaws?” Here, the response to evidence of a patriarch’s heresy is, “But… what about your government?”
But what does this answer? And how does that defend what Patriarch Kirill teaches?
Objection 16: “But NATO provoked Russia”
This objection insists that we turn from Kirill’s teaching to NATO’s conduct, as though blaming NATO answers the book. It does not. This is whataboutism, and the insistence on changing the subject is not a response to any arguments we have made.
The argument predates our book. In March 2022, Patriarch Kirill attributed the origins of the conflict to relations between the West and Russia, invoking NATO’s military buildup near Russia’s borders.[53] In July 2024, Orthodox Reflections endorsed the claim that Kyiv had provoked the war and introduced an account of “how NATO and Kiev led us to the current war.”[54]
But the book has not ignored NATO. Our self-defense chapter explicitly addresses Russia’s concerns about NATO expansion and Western influence. It also quotes ROCOR’s condemnation of NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999.
The chapter reads St. Basil, St. Nikodemos, and St. Theodore on defending the Orthodox faith and Orthodox Christians against non-Orthodox attackers. How does blaming NATO turn a war in which Orthodox Christians kill other Orthodox Christians into the defense those saints describe? Metropolitan Onuphry, whose Church was supposedly being protected, condemned the invasion as a fratricidal war without justification before God or men. Where is the answer to that? Or did he just not understand that it was the fault of NATO also? [41]
If the claim is that NATO made this invasion necessary, then answer the chapter’s examination of that claim. It considers peaceful alternatives and Metropolitan Anthony’s requirement that fighting prevent a greater evil than it causes. Which part of that examination is wrong? Repeating that Russia was provoked does not establish that these conditions were met.[36]
And how would blaming NATO establish that this war is holy, or that a soldier’s death while fulfilling military duty washes away all his sins? The book examines those teachings against the witness of the saints in “Can War Be Called Holy?” and “Does Dying in War Wash Away All Our Sins?”. NATO’s conduct does not answer either chapter.
We do not have to settle every accusation against NATO before someone can identify an error in the book’s argument.
Answer what the book says. Insisting that we discuss someone else’s wrongdoing while leaving these arguments unanswered is evasion.
C. Objections That Pass Judgment on the Authors
Objection 17: “The authors are American Russophobes”
One response introduces the book as written by two Americans, while another invokes American military wrongdoing against me personally.[55]
Even the description of the authors is inaccurate: I am an American citizen, born in Germany; Panagiotis is a Greek citizen living in Greece. None of those nationalities makes our argument true or false. Invoking American wrongdoing does not answer Kirill’s teaching, and calling us Russophobes is not evidence that we hate Russians.
The book already makes clear whom we are criticizing. It quotes Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian Orthodox Christian, who explains the matter:
When we are talking about the position of the Russian Orthodox Church, we are of course talking about the position of the official hierarchy. We’re not talking about faith. We’re not talking about the collective body of the church, which includes tens of millions of faithful, of believers, many of whom are totally against this war just as we are.
— Vladimir Kara-Murza, Atlantic Council Eurasia Center panel, September 17, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSp-10UsoOE&t=909s, 15:09
Kara-Murza also criticized the Moscow Patriarchate’s support for the war from prison, after receiving a twenty-five-year sentence for his opposition to the Kremlin and its invasion. Writing as an Orthodox Christian, he accused the hierarchy of placing “the authority of Caesar over the foundations of the Christian faith” and argued that its support for the war contradicted its own official teaching.[56] Are we now Russophobes for sharing a criticism that this Russian Orthodox Christian made from his prison cell whom is embraced by so many Russians?
Why then is his testimony left out of this accusation? Simple: because it doesn’t suit their narrative. Either that, or they didn’t read it in their pursuit to skim the book as fast as possible to respond to it.
The book repeatedly cites Russian saints and presents Russian voices critical of the war and its consequences, including Kara-Murza and Maria Ponomarenko.[57] Those are among the people whose testimony we wanted readers to hear, and they should hear them. Criticizing a Russian patriarch does not mean hating the Russian people. This is stupidity.
In reading the Live Journal blog of Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev, we find something that may help convey our point.
In his post “The Sin of Justifying Murder” (“Грех оправдания убийства”), Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev criticizes people who excuse the killings of Ivan the Terrible, Stalin, and Lenin by (predictably), pointing to killings in the West. He puts the following words in their mouths, depicting the accusation they make against those who challenge them:
Они говорят: “ничего, что Грозный, Сталин и Ленин убили столько людей. Так за то государство они создали ого-го какое. Да и убито было меньше чем пишут либералы. А на Западе вообще невесть сколько убивали, и ничего. И они еще смеют нам указывать, русофобы поганые!”
They say: “It does not matter that Ivan the Terrible, Stalin, and Lenin killed so many people. Just look at the state they built! And fewer were killed than the liberals write. In the West, who knows how many they killed, and nothing came of it. And they still dare to lecture us, filthy Russophobes!”
— Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev, depicting the accusation made by those he criticizes, “The Sin of Justifying Murder” (“Грех оправдания убийства”), https://pr-daniil.livejournal.com/47993.html, opening paragraph; our translation
The whataboutism playbook is already there: point to killings in the West when Russia and its leaders are criticized, then accuse those who object of hating Russia. A Hieromartyr venerated by the faithful exposed this reasoning present in Russia himself! We did not have to invent this ourselves. And so now these same people come along and make the same mistake that Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev already pointed out: blaming the West as a justification to dismiss evil elsewhere.
It of course is no wonder that Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev, a Muscovite, himself was accused of anti-Russian hostility! Even after his death, the nationalist Konstantin Krylov denounced his “hatred of the Russian spirit” and “anti-Russian sermons.”[58]
So this is the ingrained pattern: anyone who criticizes aspects of Russia, even things inside of it, hates Russia. Meanwhile, they can criticize the West, and we will not call them “Westphobic”.
Why?
Because, first, we are not children, and second, criticizing aspects of a country doesn’t mean you hate the country and its people. Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev loved Russia. Vladimir Kara-Murza loves Russia too. Their criticism of wrongdoing doesn’t prove they hate Russia.
At the end of the day, Glory to God that we get to share in the same accusation of Russophobia as these great people. Such accusations did not answer Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev’s teaching then, and they do not answer the passages we quote now. They are a long standing pattern of deflection that has been unfortunately internalized by many of their supporters.
The faith is not decided by the passport of the person confessing it. There is no separate American standard of Orthodox doctrine. Why is our citizenship being examined while the Russian saints we quote and Kirill’s own words are left unanswered?
Objection 18: “You have no authority to speak about this”
The book’s introduction already addresses the responsibility of laypeople to defend the faith. St. Tikhon of Moscow describes their place in that history:
At the beginning, not only pastors alone suffered for the faith of Christ, but lay people also, men, women and even children. Heresies were fought against by lay people as well.
— St. Tikhon of Moscow, “Homily on the Sunday of Orthodoxy,” February 23, 1903, https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2016/03/homily-on-sunday-of-orthodoxy-st-tikhon.html
St. Paisios also makes the distinction between defending ourselves and defending the faith:
Δεν ταιριάζει να μαλώνης για τον εαυτό σου. Άλλο το να αντιδράσης, για να υπερασπιστής σοβαρά πνευματικά θέματα, που αφορούν την πίστη μας, την Ορθοδοξία. Αυτό είναι καθήκον σου.
It is not right for you to quarrel on your own behalf. It is, of course, another matter if you react to defend serious spiritual matters, matters that relate to our faith, to Orthodoxy. You have a responsibility to do this.
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, p. 59
The saints do not leave the defense of the faith to clergy alone. Yet readers are being told that our lack of ecclesiastical rank or personal holiness disqualifies us from speaking.[55] Why is our lay status repeated as an objection without answering the saints we already quoted in the introduction?
Nor have we claimed to be saints or elders. St. Nicodemos recounts how St. Ephraim was corrected even by a prostitute: she told him that, since man was taken from the earth, he should direct his gaze there. He records the saint’s response:
On hearing this wise reproof from the prostitute, the Saint was greatly edified, and he glorified God.
— St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, Christian Morality, p. 450, citing St. Gregory of Nyssa, Encomium on Our Holy Father Ephraim (PG 46:833B)
Regarding this prostitute: Ww are not told what country she is from, how many years she has been Orthodox (if she was at all), nor are we told of her clerical rank, and let’s also take into account that she is female and that especially in this period of time, spiritual counsel from a woman would generally not be normative. But yet St. Ephraim was reproved and was able to accept it and be edified. And in the lives of our saints, there are many accounts of saints being edified by normal people.
Now, let us compare this to the Orthodox Christians of our time, who cannot be edified by anyone lest they have the proper credentials, and worse, they cannot be edified and corrected even by the saints when presented with their words.
May God help us.
Conclusion
We wrote this book for Orthodox Christians troubled by what they hear being taught in the Church, including those afraid that examining it would itself be wrong. They deserve an answer grounded in the faith. Judgments about our nationality or spiritual standing do not supply that answer; neither do rushed criticisms that pass over what the book actually says.
This is not such a trivial matter that someone can just skim through, provide a response, and think that this is enough. We are talking about matters of life and death, people being killed, repentance, and salvation. We are also talking about commemorating hierarchs who publicly teach heresy, and the responsibilities the saints place on Orthodox Christians in those circumstances.
And the book does not begin and end with war. What of Kirill’s teaching that Muslims and Orthodox pray to the same God? What of his praise for Sergianism? What of his relationship with Fidel Castro? The book examines these matters against the witness of the saints. The objections about war and nationalism leave these cases unanswered.[59] Some replies do discuss subjects beyond war, but not much evidence is provided or responded to. Are these not theological questions too? So in large part, most people skipped over earlier chapters or skimmed them, while ignoring the earlier chapters that help establish much of the framework and arguments that later chapters rely on.
The authors of course are humans and can make mistakes. But we entreat readers to please read the book first. And in general, to carefully first listen, before rushing to disagree.
If a quotation is inaccurate, a source is misapplied, or a conclusion does not follow, quote the passage and show the error. But before raising an objection, check whether the surrounding argument or another chapter already answers it; many of these objections would have been answered if those raising them had taken the time to read patiently.
Patriarch Kirill, sermon after Liturgy at the Cathedral of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, July 21, 2025, quoted in “Muslims and Orthodox Pray to the Same God”. In the same sentence, he speaks of both communities believing in one God and caring for the well-being of their people and all of Russia. ↩
Sergey Khudiev, “On Hellenism and Ethnophyletism” (“Об эллинизме и этнофилетизме”), Radonezh, May 29, 2026. Russian original: “Потом того же самого патриарха Кирилла разоблачают, как воинствующего националиста. Но как можно было бы ставить в вину одному и тому же человеку воинствующий антизападный национализм и про-латинский экуменизм? Русский национализм — это, мягко говоря, не экуменическое и точно не латинофильское явление.” In English translation: “Then the very same Patriarch Kirill is exposed as a militant nationalist. But how can the same person be accused of militant anti-Western nationalism and pro-Latin ecumenism? Russian nationalism is, to put it mildly, not an ecumenical and certainly not a Latinophile phenomenon.” ↩
For the nationalist statements, see Kirill’s address to the Third Russian World Assembly, November 3, 2009, and his address to the Supreme Church Council, March 18, 2022, discussed in “Russian World Ethnophyletism”. For the ecumenist statements, see the Joint Declaration signed by Kirill and Pope Francis, February 12, 2016, especially paragraphs 5–6 on lost unity and its restoration, examined in “The Havana Declaration”. These are the statements the book evaluates; hostility toward the West does not negate the separate evidence concerning Rome. ↩
Sergey Khudiev, “On Hellenism and Ethnophyletism”, Radonezh, May 29, 2026. Russian original: “Но каким образом это могло бы составлять именно ересь? Святитель Иоанн Златоуст, например, полагает, что «удерживающим» является римская держава — подданным которой он являлся. Делает ли это его еретиком?” In English translation: “But how could this constitute heresy as such? St. John Chrysostom, for example, believes that the ‘restrainer’ is the Roman state, of which he was a subject. Does that make him a heretic?” ↩
@Nonviolento, X, May 24 and 27, 2026. In English translation: “Sysoev has not been canonized by anyone and is neither a saint nor a hieromartyr” (May 24). The following post says that Silouan Wright “does not understand even such a simple matter as how canonization takes place in the Russian Orthodox Church” while writing about the patriarch’s heresies (May 24). After the author replied, @Nonviolento added: “Your book at least needs a note that Sysoev has not been canonized” (May 27). ↩
Patriarch Kirill, condolences on the death of Priest Daniel Sysoev, November 20, 2009, official English text, Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations. This is testimony to Kirill’s description of Fr. Daniel, not a formal canonization decree. ↩
Hieromonk Damascene, Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, indexed PDF pp. 924–926. The account describes the publication of A Chronicle of the Veneration of Archbishop John Maximovitch in 1976 and Bishop Nektary singing the glorification hymn to John as to a saint before his formal canonization. It records that canonization on June 19/July 2, 1994. ↩
Great Art Thou, O Lord, “Death and Glorification,” indexed PDF pp. 115–117. Metropolitan Daniel recalls people visiting Gabriel’s grave as the grave of a saint and his own prayers there before canonization. The following account identifies Gabriel’s already established veneration and recognition, together with miracles, as grounds for canonization. ↩
St. Nektarios of Pentapolis, On Greek Philosophy as the Pedagogue of the Greeks toward Christianity (ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΙΑΣ ΩΣ ΠΑΙΔΑΓΩΓΟΥ ΤΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΙΣΜΟΝ), Athens, June 17, 1896, Greek text. Translations here are from the Greek. The paragraph beginning “Ὁ Ἕλλην γνωρίσας” connects teaching with love of neighbor and sharing, and states “δὲν ἐζήτησε δούλους ἀλλ᾿ ἐλευθέρους” (“did not seek slaves but free people”). The earlier paragraph beginning “Ἡ φιλοσοφία εἶναι” describes philosophy spreading among nations and making them Greek. The concluding discussion explicitly denies that philosophy could be humanity’s final goal or supply the salvation found in Christianity. The text also uses strong language about the Greek nation’s providential election and perpetuity; the interpretation offered here reads that language in relation to the teaching and Christian service the work itself describes. ↩
Nikolaos Mannis, “Church and war (a defense of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow)”, June 20, 2026, opening discussion of the September 25, 2022 sermon. He objects to the reporting phrase “Russian soldiers”, stresses “if”, “someone”, duty and an oath, distinguishes dying from killing, and says the sermon’s subject is sacrifice. ↩
Moscow Patriarchate press service, official account of the September 25, 2022 service, at the Alexander Nevsky skete near Peredelkino. The account prints the petitions and prayer and then records the sermon after the Liturgy. The prayer also requests peace throughout Holy Rus and forgiveness for the dead; those petitions do not change the first-person alignment used in its request for victory. Translations in the body are from the Russian/Church Slavonic text. ↩
Patriarch Kirill, address at the Danilov Monastery, September 12, 2022, naming Vladimir Putin as the head of “our” state and supreme commander, and praying for Russia’s spiritual and material strength. ↩
The phrase belongs to the coverage, not to the book. Orthodox Times: “Any Russian soldier who dies in the war in Ukraine is forgiven for his sins.” Aleteia: “Patriarch Kirill says Russian soldiers who die in Ukraine have sins washed away.” RFE/RL: “Dying In Ukraine ‘Washes Away All Sins’.” Rossiyskaya Gazeta headlined that those sacrificing themselves while fulfilling the oath “смоют все грехи”; Kommersant that he “пообещал прощение грехов погибшим в «междоусобной брани» на Украине”. The book sets out this coverage, and its wording, in “Does Dying in War Wash Away All Our Sins?”. ↩
Patriarch Kirill, address to clergy of the Kaliningrad Metropolia, June 14, 2025. His remarks invoke Muslims dying in defense of the Motherland. The book reproduces the relevant words and context in “Muslims and Orthodox Pray to the Same God”. ↩
Metropolitan Eugene of Tallinn and All Estonia, response to the Estonian Ministry of Internal Affairs, replying to its letter of October 7, 2022. He expressly dissociates himself from Kirill’s September 25 statement concerning absolution for military personnel dying in the performance of duty. The statement and the government pressure surrounding it are discussed in “Does Dying in War Wash Away All Our Sins?”. ↩
Nikolaos Mannis, “Church and war (a defense of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow)”, June 20, 2026. The response describes the excerpt as presented “as a direct murderous threat” and supplies the preceding Renovationist comparison. Nikolaos Mannis, who attends Old Calendarist churches while rejecting the designation “Old Calendarist,” has previously condemned Sergianism explicitly. In his response, he even invokes Fr. Valentin Sventsitsky, specifically noting his opposition to the Sergianist Declaration of 1927. Yet he offers no response to the book’s evidence concerning Patriarch Kirill’s reverence for Sergius. How does he reconcile his defense of Kirill with his own stated rejection of Sergianism? ↩
UN Special Rapporteurs, communication AL RUS 25/2023, November 8, 2023, p. 3, report allegations that occupying forces detained and tortured several Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) priests in Kherson in March 2022. These reported incidents predate Kirill’s January 8, 2023 sermon. They supply relevant wartime context, without establishing his intent or a connection between his words and any particular attack. ↩
Nikolaos Mannis, “Church and war (a defense of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow)”, June 20, 2026. The response appeals to military saints, canonists’ discussions of St. Basil, liturgical victory prayers, and St. Theophan’s letters. ↩
Mannis, “Church and war”, numbered objection 7, on the Church’s prayer for the army. He disputes the book’s account of the prayers and supplies victory petitions as his answer. ↩
The Orthodox Church in America’s explanation of the Great Litany identifies the response “Lord have mercy” and the petitions for peace, salvation, civil authorities, armed forces, and those in captivity. For the historical victory petition in the great ectenia, see G. V. Shann, trans., Book of Needs of the Holy Orthodox Church (London: David Nutt, 1894), printed Notes p. XVI, PDF p. 24. ↩
Isabel Florence Hapgood, comp. and trans., Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church (1906), Matins, printed p. 17; PDF p. 55. The edition identifies the historical wording quoted here. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s hymns of the Exaltation of the Cross identify the same hymns as the troparion and kontakion; present-day translations and formulations differ, so their wording should not be substituted silently for the historical royal petitions. ↩
Apostoliki Diakonia, “Απολυτίκιον Τιμίου Σταυρού”, apolytikion, Tone 1; compare the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America’s Digital Chant Stand, Menaion for September 14. Both print the Greek petition quoted here. The accompanying kontakion uses “κατὰ τῶν πολεμίων,” “against enemies.” The English rendering of the Greek troparion phrase above is literal; the preceding Hapgood quotations retain her published wording. ↩
St. Theodore the Studite, Letter 455 to Theophilos of Ephesus, discussed in “St. Theodore the Studite and the Problem of the Paulicians”, Apostoliki Diakonia, section on the examples of St. Symeon and St. John the Faster. The passage identifies the external attackers as Scythians and Arabs and those being killed as the people of God, distinguishing this defense from persecution of heretical subjects within the Empire. The book already quotes this distinction in its self-defense chapter. The Greek text and an additional English rendering are also available at Roman Letters; that site labels its English translation AI-assisted and not peer-reviewed. The quotation in this article is our translation of the Greek text, digital edition p. 282. Here παρακαλοῦμεν continues an appeal to the emperor, as the preceding sentence makes explicit. Patapios likewise describes exhortation; this passage does not itself describe prayer addressed to God. Greek: «καὶ εὖ γε ἔχει, καὶ νῦν τὸ αὐτὸ τοῦτο παρακαλοῦμεν, καὶ Σκύθας καὶ Ἄραβας θανατοῦντας τὸν λαὸν τοῦ θεοῦ πολεμεῖν καὶ μὴ φείδεσθαι τοὺς βασιλέας.» ↩
Mannis, “Church and war”, numbered objection 6, on military saints. He quotes the book’s challenge concerning saints who took up arms against persecutors, then offers Constantine’s victory and accounts of killings involving Mercurius and Theodosia, among others. The objection heading here summarizes their use as counterexamples; it is not a verbatim sentence from his response. ↩
See the book’s “Does Dying in War Wash Away All Our Sins?”, including the cited Synaxaria, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Nikodemos. ↩
Saint Paisios the Athonite, Holy Hesychasterion “Evangelist John the Theologian,” Vasilika, Thessaloniki (2018), trans. Fr. Peter Chamberas, pp. 494–495. The narrative describes a young man’s contempt for others, the saint’s repeated smacks, and his subsequent affection. It is cited as an account of a particular corrective act, not a general permission to strike people or a precedent for war. ↩
Mannis, “Church and war”, discussion of David before the numbered list of Fathers and teachers supporting just war. He argues that the book’s interpretation would prevent emperors who fought bloody wars from building churches. ↩
Mannis, “Church and war”, note 9. He names War and the Bible and accuses the authors of selecting useful excerpts from other works, but gives no contrary passage from that title. For the book’s use of St. Nikolai on war, see “When Can War Be Considered Self-Defense?”. ↩
“Great Martyr Mercurius of Caesarea, in Cappadocia”, Orthodox Church in America, November 24 commemoration. The life places the intervention against Julian after Mercurius’s martyrdom and describes St. Basil praying that Julian would not return from his Persian campaign to resume persecuting Christians. It attributes the deliverance to the Theotokos sending Mercurius through St. Basil’s prayers. The account cited in the response, from the Chronicle of John Malalas, pp. 181–182, places him before Christ in heaven. These are distinct versions of the intervention; neither describes a living soldier receiving an order for a military campaign. ↩
St. John Moschos, The Spiritual Meadow, chapter 26, the account of the visitor Theophanes and Abba Cyriacus of the Lavra of Calamon. The vision names Nestorius, Dioscorus, and Severus among those in the fire: see the text of chapter 26 and the excerpt from John Wortley’s translation. The seer is the visitor, not Moschos or Cyriacus. ↩
Mannis, “Church and war”, numbered objection 4, which rejects the Phokas parallel because Kirill did not request canonization; and the later numbered source list, entries 5–7, citing Zonaras, Balsamon, and St. Theophan. The heading summarizes the use of these teachings in his defense of Kirill; it does not attribute to him a verbatim statement that every military death remits sins. ↩
Mannis, “Church and war”, numbered objection 2, on impediments to priesthood. He invokes blindness, deafness, disability, and other impediments to dispute the inference from a priestly impediment to condemnation of laypeople. ↩
Mannis, “Church and war”, quoting Nikephoros Phokas’s military instructions from Eric McGeer, Sowing the Dragon’s Teeth (1995), pp. 57, 59. The passage is cited here as presented by Mannis; the printed pages have not been independently checked for this response. ↩
Metropolitan Clement (Kapalin), “St. Theophan the Recluse and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877”, Works on Russian Patrology 4 (16), 2022, pp. 72–83. ↩
Mannis, “Church and war”, opening paragraphs. ↩
“When Can War Be Considered Self-Defense?”, including its presentation of the sources and application to the invasion. ↩
Sources invoked in Mannis’s response: St. Athanasius, Letter to Amun; St. Ambrose, On the Duties of the Clergy, Book I, especially chapters 27 and 36; St. Augustine, City of God, I.21. The distinctions here concern the claims these passages make, rather than an assertion that they all use identical moral terminology. ↩
Nikolaos Mannis, “Church and war”, discussion of St. Theodore’s letter to St. Theophilos, alleges that three saints opposed Theodore and interprets their position as punishment for massacres. Compare Theodore’s own Letter 455, especially its closing report of the patriarch’s assent: «μαχαίρᾳ ἡ ἐκκλησία οὐκ ἐκδικεῖ» («καὶ κατένευσεν»), “the Church does not avenge herself by the sword” (“and he agreed”). Hieromonk Patapios, “St. Theodore the Studite and the Problem of the Paulicians”, The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 43 (1998), pp. 143–154, cites Theophanes’s Chronographia, p. 495 (trans. Turtledove, pp. 174–175), but notes that Nikephoros’s recommendations are lost and that his Life describes a prohibition of public worship rather than a death sentence. Theodore’s letter preserves the exchange with Theophilos and separately allows civil punishment for violent crimes. These sources establish a dispute over coercion and its grounds; they do not establish one identical position for all three saints or settle the justification of this invasion. ↩
Fr. Valentin Sventsitsky, War and the Church, part VI, as quoted at length in Mannis’s response. His example makes armed protection necessary because otherwise innocent civilians will be killed; the application depends on those factual and moral conditions. ↩
International Court of Justice, Order of March 16, 2022, Ukraine v. Russian Federation, para. 59 and operative para. 86; cited in the book. The distinction between provisional measures and a final merits judgment is retained here. ↩
Metropolitan Onuphry, appeal of February 24, 2022, Russian original, UOC English translation; cited in the book. ↩
Sergey Khudiev, “On Hellenism and Ethnophyletism”, May 29, 2026, distinguishes theological errors from heresy and appeals to other patriarchs’ continued commemoration. Compare the book’s “On Heresy, Synods, and Right Belief”, particularly its discussion beginning “A necessary distinction must be made here,” its treatment of ongoing ROCOR commemoration, and its distinction between diagnostic recognition and juridical deposition. ↩
Nikolaos Mannis, “Church and war (a defense of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow)”, opening paragraphs: “I will not examine the political and historical arguments of the book at all.” He then argues that acknowledging the alleged persecution would prove Russia’s war defensive, before announcing that he will examine only selected theological and patristic points. Emphasis added in the opening quotation above. ↩
Nikolaos Mannis, “Church and war (a defense of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow)”, June 20, 2026, alleges that the authors “did not find a single word of protest” concerning Bartholomew’s support for the Afrin operation. ↩
Pravblog (Правблог), post 12384, May 4, 2026, presents the book as part of a coordinated Phanar information campaign against Moscow. On the Church and the People (О Церкви и о людях), post 3941, May 21, 2026, speculates that someone invested in the authors’ work and treats the absence of praise for Bartholomew as an attempt to appear impartial or evidence of different backers. Pravblog (Правблог), post 12445, May 31, 2026, repeats its earlier allegation and connects promotion of the book with the UOC’s pro-autocephaly wing. Yan Taksyur’s “A Conspiracy Against the Patriarch” (“Заговор против Патриарха”), May 7, 2026, likewise treats the book’s circulation among different Orthodox groups as evidence of a coordinated campaign, without establishing that coordination. Its proposed response to the alleged heresies is to publicize Bartholomew’s alleged canonical violations. It supplies no textual or patristic rebuttal to the book’s arguments. These sources supply allegations of coordination, not evidence establishing it. By contrast, Uranopolitica (Уранополитика), post 11115, May 5, 2026, rejects the Phanar allegation, describes the book as an initiative of two laymen, and points to its criticism of Bartholomew. The same channel nevertheless criticizes the book in the following post. English translations are preserved in the research packet. ↩
St. John Chrysostom, Homily 16 on First Corinthians, §2, commenting on 1 Corinthians 5:12–13 (indexed Complete Works PDF p. 2794; text online at New Advent). Chrysostom explains that Paul cared for those outside the Church, but laid down Christian disciplinary requirements for them after they received the Gospel. The distinction concerns accountability within the Church; it does not excuse wrongdoing outside it. ↩
Life of St. Athanasius of Alexandria, January 18, in the indexed Lives of Saints compilation, PDF pp. 463–465. The account describes the Arian bishops’ attempts to depose him, their imperial support, and his continued defense of the Nicene faith through exile and persecution. ↩
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 8, Basil: Letters and Select Works, Prolegomena, “Basil as Archbishop,” indexed PDF pp. 50–51. The account describes Basil’s refusal to submit to Valens’s religious demands through the prefect Modestus, despite threats of confiscation, exile, torture, and death. This supports resistance to doctrinal coercion; Basil also intervened in civic affairs, as Letters 74–75 demonstrate. ↩
Life of St. Maximus the Confessor, January 21, in the indexed Lives of Saints compilation, PDF pp. 539–541. Maximus disputes Pyrrhus’s Monothelitism by appeal to Scripture and the Fathers and supports the conciliar condemnation of the teaching despite imperial opposition. ↩
Life of St. Nicholas the Confessor, Abbot of Studion, February 4, in the indexed Lives of Saints compilation, PDF pp. 732–733. Following their imprisonment under Leo, Theodore and Nicholas join Patriarch Nikephoros in seeking to persuade Emperor Michael to abandon iconoclasm. The witness here concerns their defense of holy icons. ↩
Life of St. Martin the Confessor, Pope of Rome, April 14, in the indexed Lives of Saints compilation, PDF pp. 1616–1617. Martin admonishes Patriarch Paul to abandon the teaching contrary to the Church and convenes the council condemning Monothelitism; the account then describes the emperor’s efforts to seize him. ↩
St. John of Damascus, On Holy Images, printed pp. 52–53 (CCEL PDF pp. 35–36). In defending the received ecclesiastical tradition, John rejects royal commands that overturn it and distinguishes the authority of rulers from the apostolic authority to bind and loose. ↩
Patriarch Kirill, letter to Rev. Prof. Dr. Ioan Sauca, March 10, 2022, English translation published by the World Council of Churches. Kirill attributes the confrontation to relations between the West and Russia and invokes NATO’s military buildup. This letter predates the book and is cited as his own formulation of the argument, not as a response to our work. ↩
Nicholas, “4 Reasons the New Patriarch of Bulgaria is a Victory for Global Orthodoxy”, Orthodox Reflections, July 11, 2024, section 3, “Isolating Constantinople, Instead of Russia.” The article endorses the claim that the post-Maidan Ukrainian government provoked the war, invokes its pursuit of NATO membership, and introduces Jacques Baud’s account assigning responsibility to NATO and Kyiv. It predates our book. It is cited to document this public defense of Russia’s invasion, not to establish the truth of its allegations. ↩
Sergei Khudiev, “On Hellenism and Ethnophyletism”, May 29, 2026, introduces the authors as “two Americans” («два американца»). For the appeal to Silouan’s citizenship and American military conduct, see Mannis’s opening paragraphs. Yulia Latynina’s May 24, 2026 post likewise shifts attention to the author’s identity: she emphasizes Wright’s race, American nationality, and conversion seven years earlier while referring ironically to the authors’ theological standing. The post identifies no specific textual or theological error in the book. ↩
Vladimir Kara-Murza, “At the heart of Christianity is the rejection of violence”, Meduza, November 1, 2023, translated by Sam Breazeale. This is Kara-Murza’s own article, supplied by his associates, rather than an interview. He criticizes the hierarchy’s support for the war, cites section III.8 of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Foundations of the Social Concept, and thanks clergy who spoke against the war. The book cites this article in “What Did Patriarch Kirill Bless?” ↩
See “What Did Patriarch Kirill Bless?” for the book’s treatment of Kara-Murza and Ponomarenko. ↩
Alexei Makarkin, “Убийство священника Даниила Сысоева” (“The Murder of Priest Daniel Sysoev”), Politcom.ru, November 23, 2009, section “Идеологическая эволюция” (“Ideological evolution”). Makarkin quotes Konstantin Krylov’s LiveJournal statement after Sysoev’s death, including «его ненависть к русскому духу» and «Его антирусские проповеди». Translations in the text are ours. This documents the accusation of anti-Russian hostility; it is not presented as an exact occurrence of the word “Russophobe.” ↩
Nikolaos Mannis’s “Church and war (a defense of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow)” is a concrete example of this selective engagement. His examination of the book concentrates on the war chapters: military death, the canons, military saints, and the conditions for defense. Where is his examination of the book’s cases concerning Muslims and Orthodox praying to the same God, Kirill’s praise for Sergianism, or his relationship with Castro? None is supplied. Those are theological matters too. This is why we say the book has not been engaged as a whole. Sergey Khudiev’s “On Hellenism and Ethnophyletism” does discuss material outside war, including nationalism and ecumenism, but likewise does not examine these three cases. ↩