Last September, when President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists, Moscow Patriarch Kirill required his clergymen to pray for victory. Standing in front of the altar and dozens of his parishioners in one of Moscow’s churches, Koval decided to put the peace above the patriarch’s orders.
Similar to Putin’s authoritarian regime, Kirill built a harsh hierarchy in the church that demands total conformity, Andrey Desnitsky, professor of philology at Vilnius University in Lithuania, told The Associated Press. If a priest refuses to read the patriarch’s prayer, his loyalty is suspect. The Russian Orthodox Church explains the repressions against the priests who spoke against the war are punishment for their so-called engagement in politics.
After a Russian Orthodox Church court decided he should be defrocked, Koval appealed to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who has asserted a right to receive petitions of appeal from other Orthodox churches' clergy, over Russia's objections. Not allowed to serve in the church, Burdin brought his sermons to a Telegram channel where he guides Orthodox Christians confused by the patriarch’s support of the war.
“I realized that no one hears the words about peace,” the 37-year-old priest says. “It should have been conveyed to the people, to our flock, but it was not. And then I realized that I have another tool: social networks.”