While the humanitarian costs of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continue to make headlines, the war also reveals contemporary religious concerns around global Orthodoxy and Vatican diplomacy.
On this episode, we speak with two guests: George Demacopoulos, professor of Orthodox Christian Studies at Fordham University, and Paul Elie, a regular contributor to the New Yorker and a longtime Commonweal contributor.
Demacopoulos frames the fiery rhetoric of Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill, who has called the invasion a “holy war,” while Elie explains why Pope Francis has not denounced Vladimir Putin as forcefully as many would like him to.
For further reading:
- ‘From Complacency to Clear Condemnation,’ George Demacopoulos
- ‘The Pope, the Patriarchs, and the Battle to Save Ukraine,’ Paul Elie in the New Yorker
- ‘Clarity & Consequences,’ The Editors
“Patriarch Kirill believes that Russian intervention in Ukraine is justified, so as to prevent ‘decadent’ Western liberalism from invading.”—George Demacopoulos