Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has said that apocalyptic fear-mongering and speculation about nuclear war are not good for people of faith from a spiritual point of view.
The church leader made the remarks at the World Russian People’s Council session in Moscow on Thursday.
“There is no need to play along with all this. Christians are not afraid of the so-called end of the world,” the Patriarch said. “We are waiting for the Lord Jesus, who will come to great glory, destroy evil, and judge all nations.”
This, however, does not mean that people should sit idle, Kirill said, because “the enemy of the human race” is trying to sow confusion and anxiety, depriving everyone of courage and will. “A person deprived of spiritual peace is easier to manipulate,” he said.
Russia’s goal is to “resist evil,” according to the Orthodox Church leader, who called on his fellow citizens to “defend high moral ideals.”
Public concern about the Ukraine conflict’s potential escalation into a nuclear war has been growing in recent weeks. Moscow has consistently accused Western nations of escalating by supplying Kiev with weapons, most recently long-range missiles used to strike deep into Russian territory.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the attacks have given the Ukraine conflict a global character, as Kiev could not have carried them out without the direct assistance of NATO states.
Putin ordered a change in the nation’s nuclear doctrine in late September and approved the document last week. The posture now allows for a nuclear response to a conventional attack by a non-nuclear state supported by a power that possesses the weapons of mass destruction.
Russia has also carried out a strike on Ukraine using its new Oreshnik medium-range hypersonic missile, saying it was a response to Kiev’s cross-border attacks using US-made ATACMS and HIMARS systems, as well as British-made Storm Shadow missiles.
Moscow has condemned tensions with the West over Ukraine as a US-led proxy war against Russia, in which Washington is seeking to impose a “strategic defeat.”
