For Patriarch Kirill nuclear weapons are necessary for salvation, explains Mark Jenkins

Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, is a practising Russian Orthodox believer who often accompanies President Putin on visits to Orthodox monasteries in remote areas across the Russian Federation. At the entrance to Moscow’s Red Square the small Iveron Chapel is said to house a miracle-working icon, the original of which is in the Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos. Whenever the Tsars passed by on their way to the Kremlin, they would stop and venerate the icon; so, too, does Shoigu. 

Earlier this week, Russia successfully completed a test-fire of its new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile. It is designed to hit any major city in the world, and one Sarmat missile, with its fifteen warheads, would be sufficient to wipe out several British cities in one go. Russia’s nuclear arsenal is formidable. Western media correspondents laughed in February 2007 when Vladimir Putin, during his first presidential term, responded to a question about the role of Russian Orthodoxy and nuclear weapons by saying that “both themes are closely interlinked.” 

The theocratization of the Russian military is a phenomenon that has largely escaped the notice of the west. Nevertheless, there is a close working relationship between Patriarch Kirill and the strategic commanders of Russia’s nuclear forces. During the period of this relationship, western intelligence agencies have noted that Russia’s nuclear theory and practice has become more assertive than ever before. 

The Russian military is the sector of society that was most immediately affected by the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Kirill told the Russian Ministry of Defence of the time that he could help them motivate their soldiers and show them new meaning and purpose. A key figure in this new bond between the Russian military and the Russian Church is the hugely revered saint St Seraphim of Sarov (1754-1833). He was famous in his lifetime for his powers of healing, and also for his prophecies—including ones that appealed to Russia’s sense of a messianic destiny. 

In 1927 the Bolsheviks seized the Sarov monastery where Seraphim had died. Over his hermit’s cell they built a NKVD (forerunner of the KGB) prison, which was later converted into a weapons factory. By the 1950s the factory—known as Arzamas 16—was producing hydrogen and nuclear bombs. Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Seraphim’s relics (previously kept in the Sarov Monastery but later stolen) were rediscovered. On 1 August 1991, Patriarch Alexei led a procession which solemnly returned Seraphim’s relics to the site of what had once been the monastery in which he had lived. 

The period immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union had been intensely difficult for Russia’s nuclear-weapons scientists. Although they were highly qualified professionals, post-Soviet Russia often struggled to pay them. Furthermore, now that the Soviet Union had collapsed, no one was entirely sure quite what the new Russia stood for. Who were its nuclear-weapons commanders, previously Russia’s most powerful guardians, now supposed to be defending Russia from? 

Searching questions were asked about the meaning and purpose of life, and how Russia’s nuclear deterrent fitted in with the brave new world that had opened up for her. The decision to return Seraphim’s relics to Sarov in 1991 was seen as a vote of confidence by the Russian establishment in the moral probity and professional competence of Russia’s nuclear-weapons commanders. Furthermore, an unusually large number of these nuclear scientists were now also practising Orthodox believers. 

In 1996 Kirill described the nuclear-weapons specialists at Sarov as possessing “colossal intellectual potential, mastering the highest technologies, who could have easily enriched themselves, [but] have totally devoted themselves—their power, time and lives—to preserving the security of our Fatherland and the security of the whole planet”. In the Patriarch’s view the Russian nuclear shield was protecting Russia not just in a geopolitical sense but also, in spiritual terms, from the western way of life. 

Indeed, since the early 2000s, Kirill has insisted that ideological subversion should be perceived as a weapon of mass destruction as dangerous as nuclear coercion. More than once, the Patriarch has declared that the Soviet Union collapsed because of the replacement of traditional Russian, spiritual values with foreign, materialistic ones and the cult of profit. 

The phrase “nuclear orthodoxy” is common in Russia, and was first coined by historian Vladimir Kucherenko, who called for a revival of Russia’s Orthodox faith as the nucleus of a new empire “blazing in super-voltage Nuclear Orthodoxy”. He urged that “we should connect the faith with cruise missiles and phase radars and connect the nuclear centre in Arzamas 16 with the relics of Seraphim Sarovsky.” 

Another champion of “nuclear orthodoxy”, Egor Kholmogorov, has argued that Russia’s security formula rests “on the nuclear shield and sword, created by scientists and the military and the spiritual Orthodox shield and sword, which St Seraphim put in the hands of every Russian”. For Kholmogorov, the state’s task is to preserve Holy Rus for the Second Coming. 

To ensure Russia is fit for the Second Coming spiritual preparation is insufficient. Russia must be militarily and politically strong, or else it will succumb to influences that will undermine its Orthodox culture, and thereby its ability to prepare for the return of Christ. Without nuclear weapons, Kirill believes, Russia cannot be Orthodox.

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