In Some Ways, This Is a Religious War

Yesterday, Tim Kelleher, a deacon in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, wrote on NR that the silence of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, "is a scandal. The role of the patriarch in Putin’s architecture of aggression is critical. For Westerners long accustomed to separation of church and state, the Russian arrangement can seem an anachronous quirk. It’s not. Put simply, Putin has been keen to impose a Byzantine model of order known as symphony, in which crown and cathedra work in "providential" harmony. Rooted as it is, however, in gross distortions of history and purpose, this symphony has produced more anthems than hymns."