There is probable no one who has not asked himself in the past six months why the Patriarch keeps silent. The war goes on in his ‘subordinate’ canonical territory unleashed by the hands of his ‘subordinate’ president, the union with whom is to save Russia, and the Patriarch either sews up his mouth, or talks idly about “Peace to the world! War to the war”.

The supporters of the Moscow Patriarchate made various attempts to explain this failure to take an active stance. The most popular version is as follows: Patriarch had been purposefully exhausted beforehand in the nano-dust, Breguet and gay scandals, so that at the moment critical for many he could not speak out against Russian aggression in Ukraine. Well now, this is a pious version, but fairly inconsistent and even naive. For actually no total silence of the ROC exists. The matter is that some voices are deliberately dampened so that some others could be heard. The radical wing of the Russian Orthodox Church is speaking instead of the Patriarch, popular Russian media priests openly participate in canvassing the idea of ​​"people's militia" and "Russian Liberation Movement " in Donbass, and the clergy of the UOC (MP), who "fled to Moscow from the threats of Banderovites", pray during the flash mob solemnly named "the referendum on independence of the Donetsk People's Republic". A holy place is never empty

Archpriest Dmitriy Smirnov

(Kyiv, Lesser Rus – Ukraine)

Lighting priority! Everyone’s attention! People’s militiamen of Donbass are asking for help! The guys can be reached by the phone 0956518210

Call your friends, put on warm clothes, help the guys! Many of them have not had a rest for a long time now. There are many girls. Presently the activists of the People’s militia of Donbass are located near Donetsk at Yasynuvate traffic police post for the purposes of our action.

But this is not what makes the situation piquant. Do you remember that Putin in his time, without batting an eye, claimed that there were no Russian troops Crimea, and in Donbas Russia has no influence on anything, it’s simply the choice of most civilians and they have the right to protect it by any means? Now it is a common knowledge how the things were actually going. Let’s move now to the church space that was undermined by the statements of the Security Service of Ukraine that the accompanying persons brought various “holy relics” (yes, quite so, in quotation marks) under the auspices of the ROC, being at the same time engaged in espionage and intelligence activities. In response to this unprecedented charges (obviously not taken from the ceiling) there follows a reaction of the ROC represented by Vladimir Legoyda: “what may be more absurd than an attempt to present the only natural and actually unique peacemaker by now as the main aggressor?”. Yes, we are offered not believe our eyes, to ignore all instances of blatant propaganda and agitation by the priests of the UOC and ROC of this very “liberation movement” and their direct “spiritual participation” in the turbulent life of armed men who may be called ‘civilians protecting their homes and families from government troops – punishers’ either by a cynic or an idiot.

So we are invited to believe that in the ROC there is full democracy on this issue, and one needs no blessing for a “good cause” in the form of participation of the UOC clergy in anti-state rebellion do not even need to take the blessing either of a ruling hierarch or of the Metropolitan of Kyiv. Tacit non-interference in military intervention in Ukraine is suggested to be understood as a unified peacekeeping mission. Rejoice if the Patriarch has not delivered a speech in the style of Fr. Vsevolod Chaplin, hoping for non-resistance of the Ukrainian Army to liberators; the Patriarch is beyond politics, above the fray, the Patriarch is not involved in the opposition!

Returning to the scandal concerning disclosure of the relation between the “tour” of various “holy relics” and the intelligence activities of some safeguards of these “relics”, as well as the financing of terrorism in the Donbas by all sorts of pious adherents of the ROC. We have not seen any refutation of this relation in the statements of the ROC’s speakers. But all that was presented as “peacekeeping”. Indeed, “in Crimea there are no Russian troops”. Surely, the ROC has nothing to do with support and funding of anti-state rebellion in Ukraine. But who are all these people that are funding, spying, promoting, blessing – and doing all that without taking their cross and robes off? Oh, yes, indeed, they are peacemakers!

This gives us grounds to believe that the ROC is a full member of the so-called hybrid war, when the media creates a parallel reality for the interested audience, where the factual content is primitively fabricated, and the content of what is happening is distorted to the exact opposite, when all those who benefit from a conflict, claim that they are not even standing by, and they are interested in exactly the opposite to what they are accused of...

The final chord of the story to our great regret and disappointment, became the visit of locum tenens, the locum tenens of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) Metropolitan Onufrii to Moscow to celebrate the birthday of Patriarch Kirill. We won’t even say that this trip was seen as totally unethical in the current circumstances. The thunder from a clear sky was not this, but the exchange of courtesies published between Metropolitan Onifrii and Patriarch Kirill. In particular, the Metropolitan said: “I want to thank you for your spiritual support and live sympathy in those trials that we are now going through our land, the Ukrainian land. You take our sorrows as your personal sorrows and you have taken with these trails, perhaps more than I have taken because there are no close and distant people for you, no aliens and dear ones, for you - all the people are close and dear, no matter where they perform their church obedience.” Of course, the above raises a question – what kind of active Patriarch’s participation in the trials of the Ukrainian land he refers to? What are the sorrows with which the Patriarch sympathizes? Why does metropolitan see what is not seen by anyone else?

It’s not worth while searching answers to these questions. For the responses exist where an ordinary person does not have access to. Not in the spiritual world, as someone might suggest, but in the same parallel reality, where the “Russian people moan under the heel of fascist Banderovites”, where “the punitive government troops kill civilians defending their right to stay in the Russian civilization space”, where “the Right sector threatens all Russian-speaking citizens” where “the canonical Orthodoxy is under attack of the Uniates and sectarians”, and so on.

Hybrid informational cyber war would be impossible without the ROC, which has perfectly mastered the art of manipulation and substitution in the area of religious consciousness. The ROC has been one of the key suppliers of ideology, which binds hands of the active part of the faithful. The ROC appears where it is safe, and if there are scandals the ROC safely disappears, repudiating facts and charges. But do not delude yourself. “Above the fray” means “behind the scenes”. And what a shame it is, when a there is a failure and one of the curtains does not go down, and the stunned audience sees what's going on behind the scenes: actors dressing in a hurry. For this end a saving interval with cakes and champagne is envisaged. Let people quietly change costumes, masks, refresh makeup. And continue believing them. For the show will go on while there is the audience.