Russian Priests’ Strange Tradition of Blessing Weapons

The Church is currently discussing a proposal that would see the stop of blessing weapons of war. Credit: Allen Forrest

By: Luke Teague

Oklahoma City— On February 26, TASS, the Russian wire service, reported that a fragment of the True Cross was to be placed on board the chapel of the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship. The “True Cross” is believed to be the actual cross of Jesus of Nazareth’s crucifixion, an artifact both Catholic and Orthodox communities around the world claim to have various fragments of. This may seem strange to emplace such a sacred relic onboard a warship, but not for Russia.

The Russian Orthodox Church’s close partnership with the Russian government goes back to Tsarist times, where the Church was a key part of the state’s legitimacy.

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Armed Forces continue to have an extremely close working relationship. Many people may be familiar with a subgenre of videos online, informally referred to as “Orthodox priests blessing things”.

In this video from Russia Today, an Orthodox Church chaplain can be seen blessing an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, but the practice ranges from new assault rifles, fighter aircraft, and tanks; really any piece of hardware in use by the Russian Armed Forces.

Also set to open in the Spring of 2020 is a new Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces. This Cathedral, which will be the fourth-largest in Russia, will be part of a military-themed recreation park outside of Moscow, called Patriot Park.

The scope of the Patriot Park Cathedral can be seen here in this rendering from the Ministry of Defence’s Twitter account.

 This cathedral is meant to commemorate the anniversary of the Great Patriotic War (the Russian term for the Second World War on the Eastern Front), and celebrate the Russian Orthodox Church’s closeness with the Armed Forces.

However, this mixing of church and state, and especially state military capability, has slowly generated pushback among Orthodox clergy. 

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty voices the concerns of several clergy members about the risk of the Church being subservient to the government’s foreign policy aims. 

Even within the hierarchy of the Russian Church itself there are growing calls to separate the Church from outright displays of militaristic patriotism.

The Church is currently discussing a proposal that would see the Church stop blessing weapons of war, which is seen as being in conflict with traditional Christian values of non-violence.

Even if the Russian Orthodox Church stops publicly associating with the inanimate weaponry of the Russian Armed Forces, there is no evidence that this would extend to its close institutional relationship with the Russian Armed Forces and Government. And in a country where roughly 70% of people identify as Eastern Orthodox, the state presumably won’t want the Russian Church to distance itself from the state apparatus in the future.