IS THIS TINY DIVIDED ORTHODOX NATION THE NEXT FRONT IN RUSSIA’S RELIGIOUS WAR?(BY KATHERINE KELAIDIS MAY 5, 2022)

RELIGION DISPATCHE

https://religiondispatches.org/is-this-tiny-divided-orthodox-nation-the-next-front-in-russias-religious-war/

In his recent Easter message, Patriarch Petru declared that war is caused by “injustice, violence, disregard, lack of freedom and dignity, oppression and the desire to become more powerful than others.” This statement places him in direct opposition to Patriarch Kirill, not least by rejecting Kirill’s claim that the Russian fight was a “metaphysical battle” necessitated by evil forces, and by implicitly insisting that the war is the result of Russian oppression and power lust

https://orthodoxtimes.com/metropolitan-of-bessarabia-peace-is-the-only-option-for-people/

I wrote for RD on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that any war between Russia and Ukraine would be a religious war. The same is true in Moldova (and would, for that matter, be true in Estonia and Georgia), because the current recurrence of Russian aggression is intimately linked to the intra-Orthodox conflict over liberalism and modernity that extends across the Orthodox world, that mirrors so much of what we saw within Islam, at the turn of the century. 

https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/the-third-rome-and-the-caliphate-understanding-religious-nationalism-as-alternative-modernity

**Katherine Kelaidis is the resident scholar at the National Hellenic Museum and a senior correspondent for Religion Dispatches. She also serves on the editorial board of the Wheel, an independent journal of Orthodox Christian thought. Her current work focuses on contemporary Orthodox Christian identity in geopolitics and the role of historical memory.