The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has accused Vladimir Putin of “heresy” after the Russian President claimed his invasion of Ukraine was a “holy mission”.
During a speech to mark Orthodox Christmas earlier this month, Putin called his soldiers “warriors” who were acting “as if at the Lord’s Behest” and “defending the Fatherland”.
Mr Williams, who served as the Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012, condemned the use of religion to justify the invasion as “disturbing” and said that Putin’s revanchism directly contradicts the message preached by Jesus Christ.
“I’d certainly say we’re talking about heresy,” he told The Independent. “We’re talking about something which undermines a really fundamental aspect of religious belief, of Christian belief, which assumes that we have to defend God by violence.”
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, more than 1,600 theologians and clerics from the Eastern Orthodox Church issued the Volos Declaration, which condemned the “Russian World” ideology as a heretical belief and practice. The belief system grants Russia a special place in the cosmic order and claims the country has a divine right to build the “Holy Rus”: a land chosen by God for the Russian people.
“The idea that death in battle for your country equates to Christian martyrdom seems to be the most bizarre and unjustifiable interpretation you could take,” Mr Williams said.
“There is something really, really disturbing about the systematic comprehensive rebranding of Christianity as Russian national ideology which allows you to to question or challenge anything that the state is doing.”
He referred to statements made by Christ that his Kingdom is “not of this world” and “if it were of this world, my servants would fight”.
Mr Williams pointed to the fact that Putin often resists calls to scale back fighting and violence over Christian religious periods, including Christmas or Easter.
He also pointed to the arrest and detention of two young Orthodox seminary members, Denis Popovich and Nikita Ivankovich. They are facing up to 20 years in prison for what critics say are trumped up charges, according to Public Orthodoxy, a publication that is part of the Orthodox Christian Studies Centre.
Mr Popovich was arrested as he was walking to Sretensky Monastery in Moscow, for “petty hooliganism” and “allegedly shouting and using obscene language”. Public Orthodoxy wrote in a newsletter on the anniversary of his arrest: “Anyone who knew this devout young man understood immediately that such behaviour was inconceivable for him”. Six weeks later, the allegations had transformed into terrorism charges.
Asked what he would say to Putin, the theologian said: “The word Christianity contains the name Christ. Which Christ do you think you’re serving? The one of the Gospels or some nationalist goblin?”
In 2024, the Ukrainian Parliament outlawed the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, citing its strong support for Russia’s invasion.
The Russian Orthodox Church has been a powerful ally of Putin, giving its blessing to the war and supporting his campaign to uphold what he calls traditional values in Russian society, in contrast to perceived Western decadence.
Mr Williams said that Russia’s use of faith as a justification for war was an alarm bell for the West. Governments are in denial about the extent to which religion is being “weaponised” to drive human conflict across the world and religious leaders should step up their condemnation of violence, he suggested.
“In the West, we might think that religion is draining away but it certainly isn’t in other parts of the world,” he said. “To imagine that faith can only be defended by violence is a bit of an insult to faith really. If you’re saying faith can only be strong if I beat the living daylights out of unbelievers, you’re not saying much about the strength of faith, are you?”
Orthodox priests told The Independent last week that Putin was more akin to the “Antichrist” than a messiah, holding “demonic” beliefs antithetical to the faith.
“Seen from a Christian perspective, you don’t use unholy means to pursue a holy mission,” former Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines, told The Independent. “When that unholy means involves slaughtering people, invading their country, and telling lies.”
