Patriarch Kirill: there are no Ukrainians, only ‘peoples of Holy Russia’

Apr 6, 2022 by Jill

by Archbishop Cranmer:

The Russian Patriarch delivered a sermon on Sunday in the Cathedral of the Armed Forces, just outside Moscow, which isn’t so much an Orthodox cathedral as a temple to the cult of the new post-Soviet civil religion, as has been observed:

“In the war, our soldiers martyred themselves so that we could be free and independent. Only Russians are capable of sacrificing themselves to save humanity, just like Jesus did.”

..“We are not talking about the geopolitical background at any particular time, we are talking about the fact that our armed forces have sacred help from above, from God and from the heavenly saints. That’s what the cathedral is about.”

Patriarch Kirill chose his setting well, for his theme was the national glory and military victory of ‘Holy Russia’, inspired (circuitously) by the ascetic sacrifice and divine wisdom of the Desert Fathers, in particular St John Climacus (otherwise known as John of the Ladder), whose writings are very widely read in Eastern Orthodoxy through the season of Lent. The Ladder of Divine Ascent is a framework for spiritual development, from the flesh of the novice on the first rung, through the acquisition of virtues through the ascetic life, and overcoming vices to ascend to the higher virtues and ultimately the final rung of the ladder, where is found a peace and love which transcends all and passes understanding.

The interesting part of the Patriarch’s sermon comes about half-way through. It is quoted at length below because a translation doesn’t seem to exist anywhere, and the reporting of it has been scant. You don’t have to do much reading between the lines to discern his meaning, which is essentially that there is no such country as an independent Ukraine (it is an integral region of Holy Russia); and there is no such people as Ukrainians (they are simply Russians). He preached robustly, if not militantly:

Read here