The Blind Spot was one of the first online publications to highlight how an increasingly religious mindset, possibly inspired by a desire to manifest the myth of Moscow as The Third Rome, was possibly influencing Vladimir Putin’s bellicosity in Ukraine.
Since then, the idea that Putin sees himself as engaged in a holy mission on behalf of the Russian orthodox church has been much more widely picked up by geopolitical watchers.
What nobody has yet picked up on, however, is this fascinating detail offered by the Catholic Herald on Tuesday:
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.
It’s an absolutely fascinating story about the steady and progressive theocratisation of the Russian military since the fall of communism.
As the Catholid Herald recounts, when communism fell Russia’s nuclear commanders were left with a void — uncertain of who it was they were supposed to be defending the country from.
It was then that Russia’s firebrand Patriarch Kirill, noted supporter of Putin and advocate of war in Ukraine, took it upon himself to bring meaning and purpose to the country’s military.
Cue the strategic promotion of the myth of St Seraphim of Sarov.
According to the official narrative, St Seraphim (1754-1833) was a noted healer known for making prophecies. A key one included the prediction that Russia was destined to become the last defender of Christianity in a corrupted and satanised world.
The prophecy, recorded in 1833, allegedly goes something like this:
“Before the birth of the Antichrist there will be a great, protracted war and a terrible revolution in Russia passing all bounds of human imagination, for the bloodletting will be most terrible: the rebellions of Ryazan, Pugachev and the French revolution will be nothing in comparison with what will take place in Russia. Many people who are faithful to the fatherland will perish, church property and the monasteries will be robbed; the Lord’s churches will be desecrated; good people will be robbed of their riches and killed, rivers of Russian blood will flow… But the Lord will have mercy on Russia and will bring her along the path of great sufferings to glory.”
Everything that bears the label of ‘Decembrists’, ‘Reformers’ and, in a word, belongs to ‘the party for the betterment of life’ is genuine anti-Christianity, which, in evolving, will bring about the destruction of Christianity and, in part, of Orthodoxy, upon the earth; and which finally will end with the enthronement of the Antichrist over all the nations of the world, except Russia. She will come together into a single united body with the other Slavic nations and comprise a huge ocean ‘one mighty realm, fearsome to the foes of Christ’ before which all the other tribes of the earth will quail in fear. And this is as sure as 2+2=4.”
You get the picture. It’s Russia + Slav countries against the rest of the world in a mother of all spiritual wars.
But there’s more relevance than just that.
As the Catholic Herald goes on to explain, when the highly secular Bolsheviks seized the Sarov monastery where Seraphim had died — situated about 400km from Moscow — they somewhat disrespectfully decided to build a NKVD prison on the site. This was later converted into a weapons factory, which also housed a nuclear bomb facility.
When communism fell and St Seraphim’s relics were miraculously discovered, it was decided that in a mark of respect they should be returned to the Sarov monastery.
As the Catholic Herald notes, the move was seen as highly significant for the nuclear industry of Russia:
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.
In the Kirill worldview, the Soviet Union only collapsed because it had replaced traditional Russian, spiritual values with “foreign, materialistic ones and the cult of profit”.
Nuclear Orthodoxy
Russia’s traditional revival has allegedly been coupled with the concept of “nuclear orthodoxy” in many quarters ever since. The term itself was first coined by hyper nationalist writer Vladimir Kucherenko, when he advocated for faith to be connected with cruise missiles and phase radars, and for the nuclear centre in Arzamas 16 specifically to be connected with the relics of St Seraphim.
As the Catholic Herald concludes:
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.
It’s the sort of radical religious one might more commonly associate with Iranian clerics.
And yet, unlike Iran — which remains an aspiring nuclear state — the point of the story is that the emergence of Orthodox Christian fundamentalism appears to see itself as empowered by the protective blanket provided by Russian nuclear capability for its theocratic world view.
It also seems strangely analogous to the tale of Terminus in Russia-born Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy — a large colony of scientists who cut themselves off from the wider Galactic Empire in anticipation of inevitable civilisational collapse.
In the story they are protected from neighbouring invaders by their possession of nuclear knowledge. Soon enough they are happy to be confused for holy men as it suits their purposes to imply their capabilities are linked to an esoteric and mystical force. Eventually they organise the provision of nuclear services to less powerful states in the vicinity in the form of a religious system, which eventually gives rise to the formal establishment of the Atomic priesthood.
And if that wasn’t enough, there’s actual academic literature on some of these notions being put into practice.
