Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Picture: KREMLIN via REUTERS/SPUTNIK/SERGEY GUNEEV
We should not be surprised that there is a religious dimension to Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Orthodoxy has been re-established as a foundation of Russian culture under President Vladimir Putin and features prominently in Ivan Ilyin’s writings. Oligarchs have rebuilt its churches to maintain status.
Kyiv is the spiritual home of Russian Orthodoxy and the recognition of anautocephalous (independent)Ukrainian Orthodox church in 2018 by Istanbul’s Patriarch Bartholomew may have made the conflict inevitable.
But there is another religious dimension. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, its Christian church, through facing the German tribal invasions and general anarchy after the death of Charlemagne, developed along very different lines from that of the Eastern church, securely based until 1453 in Constantinople. The former confronted temporal rulers when they strayed from “God’s Law”, while stressing the uniqueness of every person’s immortal soul. The latter maintained tradition in an almost ancient Roman way, deferring to temporal power.
Over the centuries, the Western church gave the modern world individuality, personal conscience and a work ethic, in effect creating our free market system. The Eastern church, spreading to what is now the Russian Federation, concerned itself more with bolstering an elite that resembled the old Roman senatorial class. Thus there were serfs in Russia until the late 1800s, followed by a communist oligarchy, followed in short order by a slightly different one under Putin.
It is these alternative mindsets that are fighting on Ukraine’s battlefields, where the defenders receive support from the West while Russian troops are sacrificed wholesale to stamp out a perceived heresy. Ukraine is not only a disputed geographical borderland, it is also one in the realm of ideas.
James Cunningham Camps Bay
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
LETTER: Putin’s war a clash of ideas
We should not be surprised that there is a religious dimension to Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Orthodoxy has been re-established as a foundation of Russian culture under President Vladimir Putin and features prominently in Ivan Ilyin’s writings. Oligarchs have rebuilt its churches to maintain status.
Kyiv is the spiritual home of Russian Orthodoxy and the recognition of an autocephalous (independent) Ukrainian Orthodox church in 2018 by Istanbul’s Patriarch Bartholomew may have made the conflict inevitable.
But there is another religious dimension. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, its Christian church, through facing the German tribal invasions and general anarchy after the death of Charlemagne, developed along very different lines from that of the Eastern church, securely based until 1453 in Constantinople. The former confronted temporal rulers when they strayed from “God’s Law”, while stressing the uniqueness of every person’s immortal soul. The latter maintained tradition in an almost ancient Roman way, deferring to temporal power.
Over the centuries, the Western church gave the modern world individuality, personal conscience and a work ethic, in effect creating our free market system. The Eastern church, spreading to what is now the Russian Federation, concerned itself more with bolstering an elite that resembled the old Roman senatorial class. Thus there were serfs in Russia until the late 1800s, followed by a communist oligarchy, followed in short order by a slightly different one under Putin.
It is these alternative mindsets that are fighting on Ukraine’s battlefields, where the defenders receive support from the West while Russian troops are sacrificed wholesale to stamp out a perceived heresy. Ukraine is not only a disputed geographical borderland, it is also one in the realm of ideas.
James Cunningham
Camps Bay
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Ukraine troops stand fast as Russia attacks Sievierodonetsk
Fighting intensifies in Ukraine’s eastern province
Ukraine hopes for weapons’ deliveries while Russia steps up shelling in the east
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Most Read
Related Articles
How the Ukraine war has affected Africa’s most vulnerable
US opts not to rockets that can reach Russia, to Ukraine
Published by Arena Holdings and distributed with the Financial Mail on the last Thursday of every month except December and January.