Russian Orthodox Church to Send More 'Military Priests' to Front Lines in Ukraine

The Russian Orthodox Church seeks to summation the fig of subject chaplains deployed with Russian forces successful Ukraine fivefold, aiming to supply spiritual enactment and combat what it describes arsenic the "brutalization" of soldiers.

The Church is calling for astatine slightest 1,500 clergy members to beryllium embedded wrong subject units, up from the approximately 300 priests presently serving alongside Russian troops.

The connection discussed this week was framed arsenic a indispensable measurement to support the motivation integrity of soldiers and antagonistic what religion representatives described arsenic a "sinful tone of vengeance" among those engaged successful combat.

According to Metropolitan Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk, further clergy volition beryllium trained done a recently established military-focused programme astatine the Rostov Theological Seminary. The Church intends to enlistee candidates aboriginal successful their acquisition to guarantee they are prepared for work astatine the front.

At the meeting, elder Church figures argued that the service lacks spirituality and that greater religiosity among troops would bolster their effectiveness against Ukraine. Military chaplains, they claimed, would play a decisive relation successful sustaining the troops' warring tone and pushing Russia towards victory.

Archpriest Dmitry Vasilenkov, lawman president of the Church's Synodal Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces, claimed that spiritual religion prevents soldiers from succumbing to cruelty and strengthens their resolve.

"It is easier [for a believer] to measurement onto the beforehand enactment and situation death," helium said. He besides suggested that Ukrainian forces deliberately effort to provoke Russian troops into committing warfare crimes, "driving them into misdeed and depriving them of God's help."

"The enactment of subject chaplains is the main information for triumph successful this war," Vasilenkov said. "The stronger the warring spirit, the stronger the army."

Some religion officials are besides calling for a broader revival of spiritual acquisition successful the military, including reintroducing catechism courses and theological acquisition for Russian service officers. Archpriest Andrey Kanev, a subject chaplain successful Russia’s Central Military District, argued that spiritual enactment should person begun "yesterday and the time before" alternatively than successful the trenches.

"Experiencing religion successful warfare does not needfully mean due religiosity. There are commanders and governmental officers who person felt God, who person felt religion — but person not yet travel to Orthodoxy. Therefore, we person a batch of enactment to do," helium said.

Although nominally independent, the Russian Orthodox Church has agelong been nether the Kremlin’s power and routinely backs the actions of the Russian authorities and President Vladimir Putin. Church caput Patriarch Kirill often appears alongside Putin, including connected Christmas Day, erstwhile helium blessed crosses and icons to beryllium fixed arsenic gifts to commanders of troops warring successful Ukraine. The Russian Orthodox Church has consistently described the penetration of Ukraine arsenic a “holy war.”

A fig of Russian priests who person condemned the warfare person been expelled from the church, with immoderate leaving the country, often to different Eastern Orthodox nations oregon Istanbul.

In Ukraine, Orthodox Christianity, the country’s largest spiritual denomination, is divided betwixt churches that had been loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate and those nether a abstracted ecclesiastical and canonical body.

Russia’s full-scale penetration successful February 2022 has deepened spiritual divisions wrong the Orthodox Church successful Eastern Europe, peculiarly betwixt the likewise named yet chiseled Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).

Following the invasion, Kyiv banned the activities of the UOC-MP owed to its alleged links to the Kremlin.

This nonfiction was primitively published by bne IntelliNews.

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