Ukraine must win the war for there to be lasting peace in Europe. Not only must Putin be defeated, Putinism must also be dismantled, as was done with Nazism in Germany. Father Cyril Hovorun (Zolotonosha, Ukraine, 1974) is forceful. Archimandrite, professor of theology at the University College of Stockholm and an authority on the Orthodox churches, knows what he is talking about. It is not for nothing that he knows Vladimir Putin and Cirilo very well, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, of whom he was his personal secretary between 2002 and 2012. Hovorun has responded by email to questions from La Vanguardia when it is one year old of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
When and how do you think the war will end?
The when can be calculated with a simple formula: Ukrainian resilience plus Western aid. The first seems limitless, while the second has to be matched. The more help the Ukrainian army receives from Western partners, the sooner victory will come. For the sake of a lasting peace in Europe, the victory should be Ukrainian and not Russian. If Russia feels that she has won the war, she will continue to try her luck by invading the West. The war, therefore, will spread further to the European continent like a gangrene. Everyone knows that gangrene cannot be stopped unless it is surgically removed.
Will there be a diplomatic solution? Which? Peace by territories?
Like any war, this one will end at a table. The question is what cards will be on the table? If the peace formula is quid pro quo, that is, peace by territories, there will be neither territory nor peace. In 2014, under Western pressure, Ukraine followed the territorial peace formula. We did not fight for the Crimea, hoping to secure some peace. As we all know by now, this formula didn't work. Since February 2022, Crimea has become the main platform for launching new waves of attacks against mainland Ukraine. If a single inch of internationally recognized Ukrainian territory remains under Russian control, it will be used for further attacks. The same applies to other territories occupied by the Russians, such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Transnistria, which should be returned to the countries to which they belong: Georgia and Moldova. Belarus, which became another platform for attacks against Ukraine, should also be vacated of the Lukashenko dictatorship.
Do you think Putin will survive this war?
It is unlikely that he will survive the war. However, in my judgment, Putin is not as big a problem as Putinism. The biggest problem is that Putinism is likely to survive the war. If it does, this will increase the risks of recurring war in Europe. Therefore, I am convinced that we need to defeat not only Putin but also Putinism. Furthermore, the victory over Putinism would be more important than the victory over Putin. Putin can be defeated with weapons, but Putinism can only be defeated with ideas. By Putinism I mean a set of beliefs that Russia is a special civilization favored by God. These beliefs have led to the conclusion that Russia is the country of choice for all kinds of rape and violence, which it actually demonstrates in Ukraine.
He has said that Putin has the mentality of the crusaders, and that Ukraine is his Jerusalem...
Putin has a problem explaining this war to the Russians and to himself in rational terms. I think such an explanation is simply impossible. Therefore, he has no choice but to resort to metaphysical or quasi-religious explanations, for which he needs the Russian Orthodox Church. Together, the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate have fabricated a mythology that indoctrinates the Russian population into endorsing war. This mythology is not new, but quite old. We find it in the dualistic religions of the past, which saw the world divided into good and bad parts. For Putin, the West embodies the evil part, while Russia is the good part.
From the perspective of this mentality, Ukraine is believed to be part of the kind world embodied in Russia. This part is apparently occupied by the evil forces of the West. Putin believes that he frees Ukraine from these evil forces. Most Russians believe the same. The medieval crusaders were driven by similar ideas. They saw the Holy Land as a kind place occupied by "evil infidels". They did not count the victims of their "liberation" efforts, just as the Russians do not count the victims of their aggression, on either side.
Is Putin at the service of the patriarchate of the Russian Church?
Both the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate have a purely utilitarian attitude towards each other. I call their relationship "a marriage of convenience." It is certainly not “a love marriage”. Pope Francis called the patriarch Cyril Putin's altar boy. However, from Cyril's perspective, it is Putin who is his altar boy. Putin and Cyril don't like each other very much, but they need each other. For Putin, the church is one of the main providers of his legitimacy; it also helps him invent arguments in support of his war. For Patriarch Cyril, Putin is his main source of wealth and prestige.
What will be the cost of this war for the Orthodox Church?
There will be two types of costs: separately for the Russian Orthodox Church and for the world Orthodox community. The church in Russia is already being discredited for supporting the war. Even those Russians who still support it (unfortunately, they make up the majority of the Russian population), increasingly believe that it is not the business of the church to support it. When the war is over, there will be a great personal fiasco for the Patriarch Cyril and for the Russian church. In order to find a new place for itself in the new Russia, this church will have to repent of what it has done under Putin. In any case, Russian society will become even more secularized. It is already very secular, with the population in the single digits attending church regularly. The number of assists will be further reduced.
Global Orthodoxy, as your readers probably know, does not have a single Vatican-like center. We have over a dozen independent local churches. Only a few of them have explicitly condemned the Russian aggression. Many do not dare to evaluate the war. It means that the war has divided global orthodoxy. I believe that it can only be reconciled after I unanimously condemn the war and its perpetrator: Putin's Russia.
How is Russian society reacting to the large number of casualties that are taking place in this war? Do you think that the sanctions have been useful for something?
In a word, the reactions of Russian society to the war are inadequate. They are even more inappropriate than the reactions of German society to World War II. Yes, most Germans supported the Nazi regime, but when they were shown pictures of Auschwitz, many cried. Nowadays, due to social networks, Russians can see the images of Bucha and Mariupol. Instead of crying, they laugh and cheer their leaders, who commit these crimes against humanity. When Russian mothers receive the bodies of their children from the Ukrainian front, they curse the Ukrainians and not Putin, who started the war and sent his children to die.
I don't know what needs to be done to make Russian society come to its senses. Sanctions are certainly effective. They really work, and we need more. The sanctions make the Russians feel that something is wrong. Without sanctions, most Russians would not have thought about the war at all, it would not exist for them. Furthermore, the sanctions reduce the capabilities of the Russian military machine to produce new weapons to kill Ukrainians. Simply put, more Ukrainians have physically survived due to sanctions.
What will have to be done when the war is over?
First, Ukraine needs to be rebuilt, in some places from scratch. Second, the security of the entire Eastern European region must be reformed and improved through Ukraine's admission to the EU and NATO. The previous strategy of ensuring peace in Eastern Europe by not admitting Ukraine into Western political and security structures has failed miserably. Third, it is necessary to dismantle Putinism, just as Nazism was dismantled in Germany after Hitler's death. Hitler wanted to make Germany great again. Putin wants to do the same for Russia. A different formula should be applied to Russia after the war: get Russia back on track. This is also a formula for sustainable peace in Europe.
What lessons can be drawn from this war?
One of the lessons is that it is unacceptable to do business with totalitarian regimes that violate human rights. Second, there must be zero tolerance not only for the violation of human rights, but also for ideologies that promote messianism and exceptionalism, as in the case of the “Russian world”. The same kind of 20th century messianic exceptionalism led Germany into two world wars. Third, ideas matter because they can be weaponized. We must be careful when dealing with ideas because some of them can explode. Hence a very practical recommendation: in our universities we should focus not only on science and engineering, but also, and perhaps more, on ideas, that is, the humanities.
