RESCUE THE OPRESSED FROM THE HAND OF THE OPPRESSOR

March 12, 2024

The Message

of the Synod of Bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine

on War and Just Peace in the Context of New Ideologies

«Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,

that glory may dwell in our land» (Psalm 85:10).

Dear in Christ!

Introduction

1. For ten years now, we have been living in war, and for two of those years, Ukraine has been plunged into the flames of a liberation war against a full-scale attack by the Russian aggressor. The time of war is extremely painful and cruel: it causes countless traumas to everyone and the whole society. Every day we receive tragic news about the deaths of Ukrainians; many have already lost their family members and friends; we are witnessing the destruction of what is most precious to us - our Homeland, our families' well-being, our happiness, our dreams. In such circumstances, it is very understandable that a person is inclined to surrender to emotions: to plunge into despair and hopelessness, or to let hate reign in their soul. These feelings, despair, and hatred, enslave us and violate our dignity, which the Creator gave us. These sentiments of many Ukrainians are aptly expressed in the words of the psalmist David: «My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord, how long?» (Ps. 6:4); «How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord, my God!» (Psalm 13:4). At the same time, a part of society is getting indifferent: some people who are affected by the war, perhaps less than many others, try not to notice it, as if to forget about it. This position can hide itself both as a psychological mechanism of self-defense and as a moral disease of indifference.
2. First and foremost, we need to realize that winning the fight against such an insidious enemy requires perseverance. It has nothing in common with indifference or detachment from what the country and people live for. On the contrary, perseverance is always associated with activity, with a sacrificial love that is ready to serve for a long period: «And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete» (James 1:4). A short-term explosion of feelings or enthusiasm cannot be sustained for a long distance rather that requires exhausting efforts. For this reason, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky encouraged young people: «It is not by asingle minute's disruptions, but only by constant struggle and unceasing sacrifices, even to the blood and death of many generations, that the nation moves forward». This is very well realized by our defenders, who keep watch and restrain the aggressor every day, for many weeks and months. That is why we call on everyone to persevererance and to perform an active act of love, and with today's appeal, we seek to present certain moral foundations and principles on which to build a lasting and just peace in our homeland.
3. Such a clear comprehension of the moral and spiritual principles that guide our actions during the war and on which we will build our future after it ends and the achievement of a just peace is essential to ensure that our persevering efforts are a purposeful movement toward the desired victory. Christianity in general, and the social teaching of the Catholic Church in particular, has a long tradition of theological and philosophical thought on peace and war that is relevant to the current circumstances of our country. Thus, our goal is to share with Ukrainian society and all people of goodwill a relevant part of these treasures.
4. The Russian war against Ukraine raises new challenges and problems for the many centuries of Christian tradition of understanding peace and war. On the international stage, we witness support for our country, but at the same time, we face a lack of understanding of the depth and the seriousness of the events and hope for an easy resolution of the conflict. Sometimes we hear too hasty calls for peace, which, unfortunately, is not always associated with a proper demand for justice. «They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, «Peace! Peace!» but there is no peace», the prophet Jeremiah calls to our conscience (Jer. 6:14). Therefore, the Christian doctrine of peace and war should be considered in the context of the contemporary Ukrainian experience, so that it may bring us the desired fruit and illuminate our aspirations and efforts with the truth of the Gospel. This message is aimed, on the one hand, at assisting our people to become wiser and stronger by being enriched by the ancient Christian thought on peace and war, and, on the other hand, at contributing to a better comprehension by the international community of the challenges of our time and the place of Ukraine and Ukrainians on the spiritual map of the modern world.

1. Causes and Origins of Russia's Modern War Against Ukraine

5. It is impossible to comprehend the reasons for Russia's war against Ukraine and to find the proper spiritual means for victory and a just peace without understanding the broader background of current events, without realizing the basic principles of social justice, both in social relations within each state governed by the law and in international relations and the foundations of international law. The roots of what is occurring today date back to at least the last century, or even much earlier. The twentieth century witnessed the emergence of totalitarian regimes in Europe, primarily in Germany and Russia, which caused terrible wars and numerous crimes against humanity. The main characteristic of totalitarianism is disregard for human freedom and dignity. In this sense, totalitarian regimes are forms of state formation that are called tyranny in the Christian intellectual tradition. Tyrants, as well as the struggle against them for freedom, have been known since the earliest times of human history, but in the totalitarianism of the twentieth century, tyranny has acquired unprecedented scales. First, in the struggle against freedom, totalitarianism used modern technical means that did not exist in the past (radio, cinema, modern weapons, means of mass systematic killing, such as gas chambers, etc.) These technical means ensured total control over the subjects and led to an unprecedented number of victims, reaching tens of millions. Secondly, totalitarianism began to monitor not only the social behavior of a human being but also the private sphere of his or her life. This is how it differs from another form of tyranny, authoritarianism. The latter still leaves a person a certain amount of personal space, provided that he or she is loyal to the government. Instead, totalitarian rulers seek to conquer the soul, and completely master the human personality, the subject of a totalitarian state must adore his or her tormentors. Totalitarianism has a pseudo-religious character: the tyrants of the twentieth century destroyed or repressed the Church because they competed with religion and wanted to replace the spiritual values of traditional religions with their own ideology.
6. As a result of the Second World War, one of the two main totalitarian monsters of the twentieth century, National Socialist Germany, was defeated. The Nazi totalitarian ideology and its crimes were put on trial in Nuremberg. In the decades that followed, West Germany went through a difficult and painful process of purification and became a democratic state. In contrast, the second totalitarian monster, the Soviet Union, with communist Russia at its core, was not only not destroyed but also appeared before the world among the winners of the war, claiming to be the main liberator from Nazism. Therefore, one of the four judges at the Nuremberg Tribunal was a representative of the Soviet Union, although the crimes of the communist rulers were no less or even greater than those of the leaders of Nazi Germany. However, Ecclesiastes warned: «Because the sentence against evildoers is not promptly executed, therefore the hearts of men are filled with the desire to commit evil» (Ecclesiastes 8:11). Therefore, after 1945, the USSR even expanded its geographical sphere of influence and conquered the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, creating satellite regimes in them and founding the Eastern Bloc of Communist states, which opposed the countries of the free world. It took more than forty years of the Cold War for the communist and atheist Soviet Union to reach complete ideological, economic, and social decline and eventually cease to exist.
7. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 brought liberation to those countries of Central and Eastern Europe that had been part of the communist bloc. It also gave a chance for freedom and a decent life to the nations that had created socialist republics within the Soviet Union. Among these nations were Ukrainians, who gained the independence and national state they had dreamed of for centuries. It is worth mentioning that it was our Church, which was criminally banned by the communist rulers after World War II, was persecuted and kept underground throughout the Soviet period, that became one of the most important forces for change in Ukraine: the struggle for the legalization of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in 1989-1991 was an important contribution to the destruction of the Soviet atheist empire, and after independence, the faithful of our Church tried to spiritually support the new nation-state and were consistent supporters of its renunciation of the totalitarian communist past. The journey to true freedom and liberation from the negative legacy of the twentieth century has been long and difficult for our country. However, we see good achievements along the way, especially in the development of a strong civil society in Ukraine, as evidenced by the Orange Revolution of 2004, the Revolution of Dignity of 2013-2014, and the current heroic struggle against Russian aggression. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is an integral part of civil society and therefore cannot stand aside from its just aspirations to have proper control over state power, build a fair democracy, and protect the rule of law and human dignity.
8. The big mistake of the Free world after the collapse of the communist bloc was that post-Soviet Russia, which was recognized as the successor to the Soviet Union, was not demanded by democratic countries to fully condemn the crimes of the communist period and to force the new Russian rulers to ensure decommunization, lustration, and purification of their state from the consequences of totalitarianism. Nothing similar to what happened in Germany after World War II was done in Russia. The thinking was not focused on spiritual values but on economics: many in the world thought that the process of democratization in Russia would take place as if by itself, under conditions of private enterprise development, strengthening of economic levers, and trade with the Free world. The world's democracies hoped that deepening economic ties with Russia would help build trust and sustainable peace. However, these hopes ultimately proved to be in vain, as the Kremlin used this situation to accumulate resources for another war. The democratic world - perhaps without realizing it - has learned over time to use double standards in its relations with Russia for economic gain, which clearly contradicts Christian teaching, which states: «Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good» (Romans 12:9). Indeed, the Bible often contains texts that warn of the danger of underestimating the power of evil and naively hoping that evil will simply disappear: «Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour» (I Pet. 5:8; cf. Eph. 5:11; II Tim. 4:3-4). However, these cautions were not considered, so not only did Soviet totalitarianism escape its «Nuremberg», but the international community did not develop mechanisms for quickly identifying the danger and responding to a possible repetition of the tragedies of the twentieth century. All of this has led to fatal consequences: today we are dealing with an attempt to restore aggressive, militaristic totalitarianism in Russia in its new hybrid or postmodern form.
9. The new Russian tyranny of the twenty-first century is similar to the totalitarianism of the twentieth century, primarily because it is a ruthless enemy of human freedom and dignity. Like the totalitarian regimes of the recent past, it uses the latest technical means and seeks to conquer not only the bodies but also the souls of people. At first glance, modern Russian tyranny seems to be less cruel and totalitarian than communist and national socialist totalitarianism. In fact, it transforms the totalitarian features of the past into much more insidious, and therefore even more dangerous forms that can be called hybrid. The first feature of the new Russian totalitarianism is that it does not need ideology in the form that was characteristic of communism and national socialism, with its own «holy scripture», i.e., a body of «canonical» texts by leaders and ideologues that set forth a more or less coherent theory of the future to achieve some utopian «great purpose». Such an ideology, although it was false and ugly, still wanted to have its own «moral code» and used the phraseology of social justice. Instead, modern Russian totalitarianism does not claim to have positive content and a coherent theory; it is propaganda for nihilism in its worst forms, and its goal is the moral corruption of man, his dehumanization to turn him into a weak-willed, indifferent to moral values, an instrument of crimes against humanity. It seeks to undermine faith in any moral principles and tempts his subjects with the opportunity to commit violence against others with impunity. It claims that the whole world is governed only by brutal force, deception, and self-interest. Putting forward various conspiratorial theories of a global conspiracy against Russia, it uses them to justify any crimes committed by the Russian government against other nations. In its cult of the ruler, militarism, corporatism, open propaganda of brutal violence, and emphasis on its own national and racial superiority, the modern tyranny of Moscow has much in common with the fascism of the last century, therefore it is not surprising that the appropriate word «ruscism» was found to describe it.
10. The second feature of modern Russian hybrid totalitarianism is the qualitatively higher level of technical tools. The tools used by the tyrants of the twentieth century have evolved radically in recent decades; culture and technology have risen to many levels. Moscow's ruscism effectively uses the achievements of information technology, including social media. The digital (technological) revolution to some extent helps Russian propaganda to create a different, virtual reality that is radically different from reality, and even more, distorts it. In its practical actions, in producing fakes and postulating post-truth, modern Russian propaganda benefits from some of the most radical movements of philosophical postmodernism at the end of the last century, which denied the existence of objective and verifiable truth and claimed that there are no natural foundations of morality and law. That is why modern Russian tyranny can be called not only hybrid but also postmodern totalitarianism.
11. When it comes to Ukraine, all these features of hybrid totalitarianism are superimposed on another extremely important factor: the colonizing legacy of imperial, tsarist Russia. Most of the territory on which Ukrainians lived was conquered and conquered by Moscovia, a state entity that adopted the name «Russian Empire», between the second half of the seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. Since then, the Russian government has banned and suppressed Ukrainian culture, language, Сhurch, and identity; it has claimed that Ukrainians are only a younger, smaller, secondary part of the Russian population. As indicated by numerous public texts and speeches of contemporary Russian top-level leaders and propagandists, today this traditional Moscow imperial ideology has acquired a radical militant character and calls for the complete destruction of the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian identity as such. The war being waged by Russia against Ukraine has all the features of a neocolonial war on the European continent with clear signs of genocide. The destruction of everything that is Ukrainian has become the political program of the Russian leaders, their mania, which is supported by a large part of the citizens of the aggressor state, which indicates the unhealthy state of Russian society. That is why calls for a compromise with Russia, which Ukraine occasionally hears from some representatives of the international community, even from members of the religious community, have no real basis and demonstrate a lack of understanding of the situation in which Ukrainians find themselves. The problem lies not only in the fact that such calls are immoral, as they disregard the principles of respect for human dignity and just peace but also in the fact that they are simply unrealistic: a compromise cannot be reached if one of the parties denies the very existence of the other. Russia leaves Ukraine no choice but to defend itself militarily. This war is a national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian civilian nation for the right to its own existence and future and the independence, freedom, and dignity of our citizens.

2. From the «Russian World» (Russkij mir) to «ruscism» - the path of degradation of the aggressor state.

12. From what has been said about contemporary Russian hybrid totalitarianism, it follows that it has a particular attitude toward religion and the Church. Orthodoxy in its Moscow form is being used in Russia today to fill the ideological vacuum that arose because of the fall of communism, considering religion as a means of reinforcing state power and turning it into a political tool. At the same time, the symbols of the communist period are strangely mixed with the mental paradigms of the tsarist empire. The Russian Orthodox Church has a long, one might say the centuries-long tradition of serving the Russian government in its various, sometimes opposing historical forms - from the Orthodox of the Tsardom of Moscow and the Russian Empire to the atheistic and communist Soviet Union. In all these state formations, the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church sought to be in unity with the political authorities and benefit from a privileged position. Therefore, it should not be surprising that the Patriarch of Moscow supported and blessed Russia's criminal war against the Ukrainian people. Such actions are in line with the Moscow tradition of the Church's ideological service to the authorities and its servility to those in power. Unfortunately, now this long-standing imperial tradition, combined with modern post-communist totalitarianism, has led to a real crime committed by the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate to propagandize the war. It was this church leadership that generated the new genocidal ideology now known as the «Russian World» and voluntarily offered its services to the criminal authorities and sanctified them. We observe this deep moral fall of the Moscow Patriarch and his religious supporters with great pain because it compromises Christianity as such and undermines the trust of our contemporaries in the Church and in all those who use the name of Christ. Therefore, today it becomes especially urgent for everyone to «test the spirits» (cf. I John 4:1) in order to be able to distinguish political ideology hidden in pseudo-Christian rhetoric from true faith in Christ.
13. For many years, Ukrainian society has been trying to convey to the international community that a new aggressive ideology is emerging in Russia, a mixture of ressentiment, nationalism, and pseudo-religious messianism. However, during the entire period preceding the war, no one heard us. This ideology, which the Russian authorities called the «Russian World», was established in Russia as the official and only correct ideology, and the role of the Moscow Patriarchate in creating and promoting this ideology is now well-known and undeniable. It is the Russian Orthodox Church that has given the «Russian World» ideology a quasi-religious spirit, portraying Russia as the last bastion of Christianity on earth that resists the forces of evil. At the same time, the Russian Orthodox Church endows the deadliest nuclear weapons on earth with an almost sacred status.
14. The quasi-religious doctrine of the «Russian World» provided ideological justification for Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine. This aggression has raised to the surface a whole layer of issues that should have been left in the past. Thus, it would seem that attempts to ideologize Christianity, when it was identified with a particular country, nation, or nations with their political ambitions and goals, have long since become history, as such instrumentalization contradicts the very essence of Christianity. However, the whole world is now witnessing Russia's most brutal use of Christian symbols and Gospel images to justify the violation of the international order, the attack on a sovereign state, and mass murder. The prophet Jeremiah spoke of such duplicity: «They ready their tongues like a drawn bow; with lying, and not with truth, they hold forth in the land» (9:2).
15. It is important for Christians around the world that the doctrine of the «Russian World» has been condemned by numerous representatives of the Orthodox community itself. In particular, a group of nearly 350 Orthodox theologians called it a heresy and a «vile doctrine that has no justification». According to these theologians, the basis of the «Russian World» ideology is the false doctrine of ethnophyletism. They also "denounce all those who affirm Caesaropapism, replacing total obedience to the crucified and risen Lord with obedience to any leader who is endowed with authority and claims to be God's anointed, regardless of the title he is known by: «сaesar», «emperor», «king», or "president." And, as the previously mentioned theologians conclude, «if such false principles are considered valid, then the Orthodox Church ceases to be the Church of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Apostles, the Nicene-Constantinople Creed, the Ecumenical Councils, and the Church Fathers. Unity becomes fundamentally impossible».
16. The Appeal of the Christian Churches of Ukraine to condemn the aggressive ideology of the «Russkij mir» states that «Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church have been and remain one of the main creators and propagandists of the ideology of the «Russian World», which provides for the exclusivity of the «Russian civilization» and its separation and hostile confrontation with others. However, such a position - to exclude or delineate others based on ethnicity or cultural affiliation - does not correspond to the foundations of the Christian faith as such. Inciting hatred and waging war based on the «Russian World» ideology violates Christian principles and contradicts the spiritual norms that the Church is supposed to embody. This ideology today is a challenge to the preaching of the Gospel in the modern world and destroys the credibility of the Christian witness, regardless of confession».
17. Eventually, this quasi-Christian doctrine degraded into a complete ideology of ruscism with its cult of the ruler and the dead, a mythologized past, fascism's inherent corporativism, total censorship, conspiracy theories, centralized propaganda, and a war to destroy another nation. It seems that ruscism has combined all previous ideological constructs, from the Tsardom of Muscovy with its messianic ideas of «Holy Russia» and «the Third Rome» to the USSR with its aggressive imperialism and desire for global domination.
18. This degradation of the Christian nature of the Russian Orthodox Church has revealed major weaknesses in the previous ecumenical dialogue. Its participants, having good will and intentions, remained inaudible to warnings that the Moscow Patriarchate, as in the days of the USSR, was only instrumentalizing this dialogue. Eventually, we came to a point where this instrumentalization became visible, and the quasi-ideological formula of «dialogue at any cost» became contrary to the Gospel principle of «dialogue in truth».
19. In addition, we can state that the European practice of «realpolitik», which sometimes turned into zealotry before the powerful of this world, did not justify itself either. It was considered a reasonable approach that took into account the realities of life. However, such a position is rather evidence of implication and a recognition of the alleged inability of the Gospel to illuminate the paths of human life, where «sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life» (I John 2:16) leads people. Today, the world needs the prophetic voice of the Church, which will speak the language of justice, take the side of the offended, and shame and condemn the offender.
20. The inability of the Christian world to find adequate spiritual and worldview solutions to these challenges from Russia is partly due to the fact that current Christian postulates in the international community have also undergone a certain ideologization. Evangelical fidelity to the truth, which in a situation of violent confrontation with evil turns into the sword of Christ (cf. Matthew 10:34), has conceded to the ideology of political correctness, which creates the illusion of the possibility of pacifying evil. The reasonable conclusion that only God has absolute truth has turned into a trap of ethical relativism, which gives legitimacy even to deliberately constructed lies. That is why it is so important for Christians to critically reflect on their past perceptions in order to find the truth again in the thicket of modern ideologies and thus restore their ability to «hear His voice» (John 18:37).
21. The current challenges brought about by the doctrine of the «Russian World» and the shift toward relativism are bringing great spiritual and ideological confusion to the human community, causing many people and even some governments to lose the ability to distinguish between truth and deception, good and evil. The tragedy of the current war is that the very language of spiritual values is threatened, as Russia and other authoritarian regimes use this language to persuade people's hearts to commit terrible sin: «as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power» (II Tim. 3:5). For example, the concept of «spiritual fight» has acquired a distorted meaning in Russia and is discredited at a time when spiritual confrontation with evil is becoming almost the only means of saving humanity.
22. The ideological manipulativeness of the «Russian World» doctrine leads not only to worldview but also to pastoral losses. While fictiously defending the interests of the Russian people and elevating them above other nations, this doctrine actually leaves them without pastoral care. The souls of Russians hear the voice of earthly Caesar instead of the voice of God and therefore become defenseless against the demons of Russian history. Therefore, in a spiritual sense, the flock of this Church is left to its own devices.

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