Cultish: Vladimir Putin & The Russian Orthodox Church

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All right. Welcome back to part two, uh, ladies and gentlemen to cultish where we are talking about the nature of the russian ukrainian conflict the cultish nature of Misinformation media manipulation.

I'm very excited for part two of this conversation. As always i'm joined with andrew the super sleuth of the show. We are also joined by paul who is coming to us from ohio. And then also jacoby and you are.

What time is it there now in ukraine? It's 3 29. Uh. Pm. And what time is it there right now?

1 29 am the next day.

Okay. Yeah, so help us understand i'm very fascinated by this. So give us your thoughts when I so when I think of vladimir putin i've jokingly said i'm surprised he hasn't been casted As a bond villain in any of the recent daniel craig films.

I mean, he just seems he has the ideal part. I mean, he's this guy who's this former kgb agent. There's videos of him where he's doing pr stuff where he's on a horse. He's like riding a horse totally shirtless and jacked jacked.

I'm sure no peds were involved in the involvement in the production of that picture, you know, you have uh, You know picture of him doing judo. There's picture of him like hunting white tigers and you know, he's almost as cold a personality.

Um, how would you. Like when you first how how do you how would you even begin to describe like who vladimir putin is?

He is a a man Who as you mentioned he was a kgb agent in the soviet union and he is from a generation of russians that uh Came to prominence In the chaos that unfolded after the fall of the soviet union and he is a particular kind of personality that uh is able to thrive in chaos.

In a way in which he is able to build a political structure amongst all the craziness that's happening. And it's a political structure in which the most evil people rise to the top.

So.

A very evil man very manipulative. Believes he's above the law. This is interesting. His uh Ex-wife wrote a book about you know their marriage back when they were kgb agents and she talked about you know they weren't supposed to but they just kind of up and uh Left germany and went to turkey or whatever on vacation.

No, no, no real uh regard for the law so super corrupt um doesn't hold to honest democracy, uh. He and uh Medvedev kind of switched back and forth between two offices. So he's Managed to get in control of russia and stay in control.

Uh, so.

The ultimate thug.

Uh.

Not a good guy. One thing that is concerning is that uh. He has cancer. Uh, there was a rumor that went around a couple months ago that he fell down and soiled himself. Which is a sign that the cancer has uh gotten.

To be rather advanced the degree to which we can trust these rumors is uh questionable. But if that's the case that he could be on his deathbed right now and uh.

He's.

At a particular point in the maslow's hierarchy of needs where you just sort of live for uh self-actualization. He's like the extreme of that.

So.

He's very evil. He's got access to a lot of weapons and stuff and uh, he sort of strikes me as just being a man who's able to play and do what he wants so uh with no real Regard for the lives of his fellow russians.

He's he's carrying a lot of wicked acts. The concerning thing about him perhaps dying soon from cancer or a bullet or whatever the case may be. Is that as a man who was able to build a structure in chaos.

Uh.

That takes a particular personality type. But the person who can rise to the top in that system could very well be worse than the architect of the system itself, so Whoever it is that putin has lined up Come next could be even worse than he is.

So that's the concern. Yeah, so short answer putin is a bad guy, right?

Yeah, so in other words, it's it's uh, You'd be concerned about then. It's just really his um.

His.

The vacuum that might be filled in his absence because I was listening to a podcast I think it was uh somebody on the lex freeman podcast that was being interviewed and he was basically saying that putin has already Lived the full life of the average russian male, which I think is 69 years old.

How old is he right now?

Oh, he's older and dirt.

He's in his 80s I can google that. Yeah, he's he's up. He's up there. He was in the berlin wall fell when he was early 20s.

He's only 70.

Coming up on 71, right. Yeah, and so let me ask you this in regards to religiosity. So we had never really talked about ethan orthodoxy before.

Explain.

Uh, go ahead explain what that is in conjunction to historical like protestantism. Um, and also how does Pew, how does that how does that fit into putin in regards to this whole conflict? But this is the theological part that you sort of briefly mentioned in part one.

So you just asked for uh, 2 000 years of church history. Yeah, just very clear.

So.

There's a lot of similarities with uh, eastern orthodoxy and roman catholicism from the the protestant perspective. Um, they uh both claim to. Have their origins and preservation from the the early church.

The.

Split between eastern orthodoxy and roman catholicism was an east-west split.

So.

Catholicism was the roman church. Orthodoxy was the greek church. Okay, so about 900s a couple of missionaries go to ukraine from greece. And start developing a an eastern orthodoxy in ukraine. Then with time ukraine gets baptized.

Uh, which means it became eastern orthodox. Which is interesting. Whenever we read the bible the conversion to christianity is always an individual matter. Have you believed in christ you yourself? Eastern orthodoxy sees it as a national matter.

So greece was eastern orthodox then ukraine became eastern orthodox before it was called ukraine. It was called, uh, kiev rus. Then uh ukrainian orthodoxy had a church plant to go seriously wrong. That church plant was the russian orthodox church.

So.

Russian orthodoxy is tied into this whole eastern orthodox thing. One difference between eastern orthodoxy and roman catholicism is that roman catholicism has a pope. Uh eastern orthodoxy doesn't have one head over the entire eastern orthodox world.

They have a synod. So there's the russian orthodox church. There's the greek orthodox church. There's the american orthodox church.

Um.

And in uh 2016 There was an official schism between the russian orthodox and the ukrainian orthodox churches.

Uh.

Due to the uh, the war that had been waging for a couple of years. So if lord terry's that's one that's going to be in the church history textbooks for centuries to come.

Um.

At any rate, that's kind of the historical basis of it. Uh theologically speaking. They are um a lot more mystical than we would be in the the protestant tradition. Uh, they're even more mystical than a lot of roman catholics are if that's possible to imagine.

Eastern orthodoxy has sort of got a bit of a popularity in the united states among millennials about a decade or so ago because of the mysticism and the uh. The novelty of it, you know, if you've never been in a russian orthodox church or an eastern orthodox church in general uh, first thing whenever you walk in you'll be amazed by the.

Smell just the frankincense. Oh, yeah in the air and then they've got these uh Icons all over the walls whenever they sing it echoes. No pews. They all stand up the whole time. So they're known for this, uh, very mystical.

Uh. It's said that they pray the best which I really doubt because if you're praying to angels or to dead saints. Then you're not praying to god and you need to get your prayer life adjusted. They have priests whom you are to confess to which is uh wedging a man between the Christian and christ that is not acceptable.

Their uh, soteriology is a really goofy wacky thing. They uh, they would say god became man so man could become god through a system of a theosis uh, we could become more and more and more of like a god in order to restore the uh, the image of god.

Which was tarnished at the fall. Become partakers of the divine nature another term that you'll hear. So it's a very works-based salvation.

Uh.

It's a very man-based religion. They put man in place of god. They de-emphasize the bible and instead hold uh Uh patristic writings and traditions to a higher uh higher degree of authority. Yeah.

Well, there's also like this very like patriarchal like masculine aesthetic to it I mean just recently in the news that there was a start of you knew about it. There's I think there was a hockey player who was there was going to be a like a pride night or something like that.

And he absolutely refused. I don't know if you knew about this, but he just stood out on his grounds of being you know Orthodox christian and then I went to go find out later. He was eastern orthodox.

But I mean people people just love the fact that he pushed back and everyone like on nhl .com I think every his jersey completely sold out out of like all online vendors because people all of a sudden they found this representative.

But there is yeah, so there is the kind of like this assault on uh marriage.

And yeah, he's standing up for a divine institution, right? If he's not a believer in christ, right?

But um, yeah, there is sort of like this very a lot of people I think there is an appeal sort of there's a very masculine aesthetic and structure to it. And I don't know if maybe would that sort of play into like why putin would sort of like utilize that.

To try and say hey. This is a righteous cause to have the men Go and be part of this sort of from putin's perspective. Is it kind of like a holy war is utilizing these sort of orthodox church or how. How do?

How are these two things like fitting together in this whole conflict?

The uh, the eastern orthodox church of all branches of christianity the eastern orthodox have the best beards. I mean a russian orthodox priest has a beard that will just. I mean, it's it's great man.

Yeah, i've seen they're pretty gnarly. They've got some beards. They really do.

But uh.

I wouldn't necessarily say it's all that masculine of a religion because of its mysticism and its feely goody uh, the uh, the devotion to mary the putting out mary icons everywhere. I had an eastern orthodox friend who told me that that was Uh helping him get in touch with his feminine side, which is uh, which is interesting.

The.

Thing with the uh with putin and eastern orthodoxy is probably more related to tradition.

So.

I mentioned earlier that the eastern orthodox world has a way of getting tied up into the government, right? So the uh Holy byzantine empire the holy russian empire that the tsars of old. Were very much wrapped up in liturgy whenever a new tsar would be appointed.

It was a big liturgical process akin to what we saw recently with king charles and the church of england.

So.

Putin is trying to uh if you will uh establish sort of a new version of the uh, The the holy russian empire if you will. Which tries to unite? uh people on Racial grounds as well as religious ground. Once uh the the expressed purposes up front are that they want all slavs To be russian orthodox under the russian patriarchy or at least eastern orthodox.

However, some problems immediately come out of this one problem is that a lot of russians From the russian federation are actually not slavic and not eastern orthodox, but rather they're asiatic and is Muslim, right?

So the republic of dagestan, for example Has a lot of uh, asiatics. You wouldn't Look at them and say this guy's a slav. But they're under the russian empire. They're not eastern orthodox, but they are muslim.

So.

A move that we're seeing. Putin do you can watch his speech that he did. Oh february of this year. And he's doing a state of the union address and he's got everybody out there and he's you know. You're doing the whole thing reading the paper and the cameraman are pointing to different guys.

And.

He starts talking about the holy books and the camera points to.

To.

The uh russian orthodox patriarch and some head imam muslim that are sitting next to each other and so putin is phrasing is uh Framing the the conflict in ukraine as an attack against the holy books. And then they they kind of they're reframing this to where it's this abrahamic eastern orthodox muslim together kind of thing which is Contradictory in several senses, but they're trying to make it work.

So.

That's kind of a thing that's going on. The the russian orthodox patriarch patriarch kirill has said that anyone who dies Uh in this war fighting for russia has washed away his own sins regardless of whether or not he is a eastern orthodox or an atheist or a muslim so there's Currently a theological pole toward unity between eastern orthodoxy and islam.

As far as i'm concerned, they're both false religions that need to be responded to. But the fact that they're making that particular Connection should be a giant red flag to anyone on the ground that russian orthodoxy is is indeed a false religion because it's joining with Uh islam which proclaims a different god in the most explicit ways possible.

Andrew, what what questions do you have for paul? Uh, what's on your mind?

Uh.

In terms of the the theology of putin. Uh, is he someone who claims to believe in god or is he just uh using the russian orthodox church as like a figurehead? And does he does he say? Uh through russian propaganda that the war going on in ukraine and with the western world is a war against.

Uh, what is it? Uh. Critical race theory and things of that nature. Is like that what's attacking? Uh, the russian orthodox and uh, the holy books. Is it critical race theory? Is it wokeness? Is it those types of things like what what exactly is are they saying?

It is.

And uh. This is where it starts to get uh interesting on the ukrainian front, right?

So.

Uh, of course. Putin is a former kgb agent presumably. He was at least an atheist at that point in his life and I see no reason to think that he has.

Um.

Become a monotheist since uh, especially since uh uh, presumably he is uh. Influencing the russian orthodox church to decide who gets to become the uh, the the patriarch who's who's saying these things, right?

So.

Uh.

Uh to call him eastern orthodox in the sense of the word that uh, The the true eastern orthodox outside of russia. The greek orthodox or the american orthodox who who actually knows the doctrines and has studied the doctrines and is dedicated to the doctrines.

As much as I disagree with them. Uh to say that putin is the kind of eastern orthodox that those guys would agree with would be uh would be hard to imagine.

Um.

However, they are indeed, uh framing this as a holy war. There was an interesting, uh. A propaganda video that went out. There was a big uh rally in uh downtown moscow and one of the speakers started shouting out This is a holy war holy war.

And when he did from the cameras in the back, you know. You could see that the crowd and everything and you could hear them erupting in applause.

Wow.

And then a video was released of a guy in the the audience that had his phone out. And whenever the same line came out. Especially if I not especially if I not. It was silent nobody was Pollering. That goes back to the french.

So there's a there's a question then uh, to what extent uh, is it? Yeah, right.

Um.

So it seems that that was being manipulated. Well, one of them. Was it. Was it the the The phone or was it the the mainstream there? So there's kind of a question as to whether or not the russian populace.

Is.

With putin and to what extent? So there's kind of a question then of um of the russian populace, uh, how many of them are sincere russian orthodox, uh. People who follow that religion and how many are not.

Then of those who are sincerely russian orthodox how many of them are buying into this. And it's hard to tell. I've been trying to to gauge that i'm seeing a lot of support a lot of really hateful things coming out of the average joe in russia, but I don't want to try to pretend like I have a good feel for the The populace when I have several examples.

So that that's kind of tough.

Um.

So is uh putin russian orthodox. Kind of hard to tell. How do you define it? So what exactly is the nature of this holy war then is it critical race theory and critical theory and wokeism in short? I think the answer to that question is a yes.

They they've said it in very uh, very clear terms, uh,.

Uh.

Putin has gotten up and you know said look at what they're doing in the west, you know, they're uh, promoting the the lgbtq, uh plus agenda.

This.

This is what they're trying to promote. That the scary thing is a video that I've recently seen released in ukraine in support of the war and it had Snippets of a gay pride parade and then snippets of uh, nazi black and white.

Footage from back in the 40s and then gay parade the nazis gay parade nazis. Yeah. And i'm looking at like I kind of like that. They're drawing a comparison between the gay parade and the nazis because they have the same basis but then they put a sort of a line there in ukrainian, uh saying something to the effect of Just as we are fighting against the nazis.

We're going to fight against the homophobes too in support of uh, the the whole gay awareness month and everything. So russia is framing this as a war against the the western ideology. And it looks like a lot of ukrainians are buying into the western ideology because of it.

And this is something that we on the the missions front are going to have to be dealing with in a very serious way. In years to come. Yeah.

Help me understand real quick. Just because when I think of like critical race theory and the influence of marxism in our country I see that is almost like to russia a good thing that that's happening to the west because it will Eventually destroy like a free market society.

It'll destroy the very foundation which our government exists on. Why would they be fighting against that instead of encouraging the destruction of the west? Through uh, just letting them have have it like why if this is the way communism is going to take the west.

Why is another form of communism fighting against it? Like because I don't see russia not fighting with china and they have two different forms of communism, you know.

So.

The uh Back up a little bit a mistake that you'll often hear said is that this is a conflict between The russian military or the russian government and the ukrainian military or the ukrainian government.

It's not quite like that. This is uh, Several people in the russian government have actually come out and said Uh things like no mercy to the ukrainian people. So it's actually an attack against the ukrainian people the nation, right?

It's an actual genocide and there are several definitions of genocide. Which russia is fulfilling here? And because of the uh. Question of how infiltrated it is into society. It is very reasonable to say that it is russian society against ukrainian society, right?

Not just the top wigs. Okay, so it's the russian people against the ukrainian people one step further. It is not only against the ukrainian people, but it is against western people as well.

Uh.

They see the west supporting Ukraine, uh, they're framing ukraine as nazis, which is which is absurd. I mean, uh, so let's see as a jew.

No.

Um.

But they're framing this as a war against the uh, western liberalism in favor of russian conservatism. Do I need to go soon?

Okay.

How much do you have me out yet? Okay. I don't know. They haven't told me I could I have to go yet.

That's a good thing. Go for uh, go for uh, what do you call it? Uh forgiveness versus permission.

Yeah, this is good stuff dude keep going.

Okay so.

Sure. So they are indeed framing this as a war against the uh against the west. But the ideology of it is a little bit more complex. They're not just trying to Collapse the west. What they're trying to do is draw a clear border between the between europe and a new russian empire.

This is where the idea of a multipolar world comes from. Yeah that that russia should be independent of Of europe that the balkans the baltics should be under russia. Europe should be its own thing. The united states should be its own thing.

So it's offensive to them that america is using its hegemony and influencing what's happening around the world. However, they themselves are forcing their will around the world, so it's. It's a bunch of hypocrisy on that front.

Does that kind of make sense?

Yeah.

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Back to the show. I I think what's also interesting too when you just sort of tie in like where houses fit into even like media media manipulation. There was a video that I saw seared on a couple different conservative outlets.

I think one of them is called dc. Drano and He was very conservative leaning pro-trump conservative and he was posting these videos of I guess Ukrainian police in an eastern orthodox church like arresting or like shutting down a church service.

So the perception, you know what they're trying to depict is like, oh you're seeing these parched clips. Well, that means that zelensky is now, you know a fascist. He's a dictator and he's trying to shut down all free speech and freedom of religion in ukraine.

Right. I can see how there's an there's sort of you see someone inside it. You see and especially with kov, especially through the lens of covid when you see, you know Police people inside of a church like health officials.

We all I think we all have that prejudice in that mind. So me even for me, I see that I kind of knee-jerk react to it. It seems to me that with everything you said there's a very nuanced sort of Context to where even you would see something like that taking place.

You know what i'm referring to right that video. Yeah. Help people understand the context of that. Well, we might show that i'll share that on our social media as well, too. When we drop this episode, but help bring people and help people understand that.

So two things to keep in mind. Um, first of all. Whenever your country's at war the uh government is justified. In taking measures that would not be justified, uh when you're not in a state of war, okay.

Uh.

In world war ii america rationed food. So that they could feed the soldiers.

And do you have to go.

If biden was to come out and say we need to start rationing food today, uh, they gave me five minutes.

So hey, let me ask you this real quick. Would you have any. Are you on a smartphone? Uh, I am if you can you like. How much bet juice do you have if you leave here? Can you reconnect via like the zoom app?

I can just take my Laptop out into the front. Uh porch. Let's do that. Yeah, let's do that real quick.

Let's do that real quick. And while you're doing that jacoby talk. Yeah in that. While you're relocating and jacoby remember we talked about this.

Um.

We talked about this when we were talking. I think I want I think we did just about that video or just sort of like the nature of the that. The context of like ukrainian soldiers inside of you know, that eastern orthodox church and the perception.

That's someone like myself. You know I'm susceptible a lot of a lot of people. Where you saw people were knee-jerk reacting. I also saw people in knee-jerk reacting to a post like that. Yeah, well excel maybe while while he's relocate while paul's relocating.

Give it give us your thoughts on that or even some of the stuff that paul said as far as understanding. The the complex nuance of the religious fervor both in russian ukraine, you know in relation to eastern orthodoxy.

Um.

Okay, well I don't know if I would address it so much in the context of religious fervor. Although among certain individuals you will find fervor. Uh amongst any denomination or a group.

Um.

I would more say that Like paul was describing the general eastern orthodox different groups of Believers with each having its own patriarch for a different country, you know, russia ukraine greece.

Romania.

So on and so forth. He always had a few factions That would have disagree with some ecumenical belief like the coptic church. So they were considered heretical by the general group of eastern orthodox.

And then you had I think it was the oriental orthodox. They had a couple different views that were different. But the russian orthodox church they have it's basically a veneer. There's a lot of evidence.

I mean I I Interviewed several people and I heard it over and over again. Kareel is kgb. And this is like open information.

So.

You know you you hear it and you kind of question it because it's kind of like a hangover from the soviet union. You know, like I think a lot of people heard that during the soviet era. The church was ran by kgb agents but the fact is that The patriarch of the russian orthodox church is still kgb.

Now I would personally venture to say there's probably Sincere individuals in the church that god by his grace have saved despite Whatever the false teachings in the church are but by and large the like the russian symbol is a two-headed eagle, which is the state in the church and this is.

It's basically another arm of the state. That's what it is. And and it's. They just say like like paul was pointing out how they say if you die in this war against ukraine You will go to heaven. That's just bizarre.

There's no scriptural support for that. You're atoning for your own sins by going to fight in the war against ukraine or.

Or.

You know, they they they think that the western society is the antichrist or I don't. Well, I don't know if they would say the western society is the antichrist. But basically the faithful church in russia is the restrainer against the antichrist is what they preach.

So, you know, they just come up with whatever they can say and most of the people that they're preaching to are village people. Who hear only russian state media? And they have one church to choose from which is the russian orthodox church.

They are literally brainwashed. These are simple uneducated people that live in villages. I'm not saying they're bad people even even if they hate ukrainians, I I would give them I would think extend mercy to them because They have just you know, they're just simple brainwashed people but no education stuck in a poor village in russia, so.

That's what that's how I view the russian orthodox church. This is it's basically a brainwashing machine.

Uh, no, it's interesting man. And it's it's also interesting and all angelic to jump in here a second and I just. Maybe I resonate with this not so much that I and again. My knowledge is so it's probably very is obviously very different for your vantage point but I I Reflect back to you know when I was a bit younger during the early 2000s and you think of like 9 11 and the war on terror and sort of.

A lot of people who even who are christians in the middle east even missionaries in the middle east. There was sort of a conflict because you sort of felt this sort of national the american nationalism.

Where it was hey, you need to you know fight the terrorists abroad and you'd associate any sort of muslim, you know with. The terrorism at that time, you know associated with the 9 11 attacks and. You know, it was very I remember like going over to a middle eastern country and my prejudices.

Just from being a very pro. Oh, you're back outside the library. You there? Oh, yeah, you're on the mic a live live reporting from outside.

Andrew, it's downtown winningwood, oklahoma.

This is great. Andrew. It's like you with uh, you're like weatherman andrew. Except uh, except andrew. He has a actual microphone versus whatever prop that you have.

That's funny. Um.

But yeah, I would paul I would explain to him. You know what? He was explaining some of the complications of the relation between eastern orthodoxy and this whole conflict. And maybe it was similar for me a little bit just sort of you know being a christian but also being very influenced by like 9 11 was sort of my introduction by proxy into the world of islam and I remember in 2007 after just being a very pro bush and all very pro iraq war pro war on terror.

And then all of a sudden really god called my heart to go be What serve on a mission over there for a month? I think it was a month over in morocco africa like I Really struggled. I had to sort of disconnect myself from my americanism.

My sort of american nationalism where i'm an american. I'm a conservative right-wing pro support the truce republican versus I need to Disconnect from just seeing These people over here. That i'm supposed to minister to as a christian and potentially share the gospel with and be a light in the darkness.

I need to see them as someone who needs jesus. Versus you know a terrorist who might blow themselves up. And it took me like a lot of almost like deprogramming like the four months four weeks that I was there.

Um in this middle eastern country. Um, so it just goes to show that there's in this. It's it's probably so different. Maybe there's a parallel to that when it comes to sort of being In ukraine and trying to be a missionary there.

I understand there's this unique culture because even in this whole conflict at the end of the day. There's going to be a point where western media is going to move on to the next chapter. And you know ukraine's still going to be there and you guys are going to hope if you're both back there by then.

You're going to have to figure out how to be salt and light. You know post. You know, whatever whenever this sort of closes the chapter as far as you know, american media goes. Um, Yeah, it just it's just I think it's really important for people to understand that i'm really I really your guys's insight.