On December 1–3, 2025, about 90 scholars, leaders of Christian communities, national church councils, and ecumenical organizations gathered for a conference in Helsinki, Finland. Among them were many Ukrainians who had come from Ukraine and many other countries where they currently reside. The conference had a title that is extremely relevant for today’s Ukraine: “Resisting Empire, Promoting Peace: Churches Confront the ‘Russian World’ Ideology.” The event was organized by the Conference of European Churches in collaboration with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Orthodox Church of Finland. The main purpose of the conference was to collectively reflect on the humanitarian and ideological components of Russian aggression against Ukraine.
It is noteworthy that an international conference on a related topic was held ten years ago, on May 28–31, 2015. At that time, its title was “Political Orthodoxy and Totalitarianism in the Post-Communist Era.” Over the years, the vast majority of scholars have become even more convinced that the set of ideas known as the “Russian world” is the most dangerous theological aberration of our time.
The key idea of the latest event was the need to rationally resist the imperial narratives broadcast by Russia into the global information space and to deconstruct the ideological concept of the “Russian world” with sound arguments. Importantly, the conference participants interpreted this Russian ideological system not only as a basis for aggression against Ukraine, but also as a threat to the security of Europe as a whole.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church was represented at the conference by the vice-rector for scientific and theological work at the Kyiv Theological Academy, Prof. Volodymyr Bureha. In his report, he recalled the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Council, which gave impetus to the further formation of a symphonic model of state-church relations. He also recalled the important eschatological term “katechon,” “the one who restrains” the full realization of the mystery of lawlessness (see 2 Thess. 2:7). A distorted interpretation of this theme often serves as the basis for aggressive political rhetoric.
In addition, Volodymyr Bureha analysed the fundamental shift in the consciousness of Christians after World War II, which significantly affected their attitude towards war as an unacceptable means of resolving geopolitical controversies, as recorded in the resolutions of the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches (Amsterdam, 1948).
The report by Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun also deserves special attention. He focused on the ten-year (2015–2025) dynamics of the formation of the first ideological sketches and slogans into the conceptual system of the “Russian world” with signs of a coherent ideology and destructive practical manifestations. Fr. Cyril called for caution in using the term “heresy” in relation to this doctrine. In his opinion, for an adequate theological assessment, “we should return to the most ancient concept of heresy, as understood by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, who considered and denounced dualism as the original, arch-heresy.” It is in this sense, according to Fr. Cyril, that the “Russian world” can be called heresy.
An important achievement of the meeting was the final Conference Statement, published on December 8. It clearly and unambiguously called the concept of the “Russian world” an imperial ideology that absorbed and modernized the earlier concepts of “Moscow, the Third Rome” and “Holy Rus,” while also adopting the practices of Soviet political expansionism. These ideas also “have blurred the boundary between political ideology and theology, in ways that distort Christian faith.”
The danger of the civilizational exclusivism of the “Russian world” lies in its apologists’ denial of the fundamental right of peoples to self-determination, which is particularly relevant to Ukraine at present. The dualistic nature of the ideology can be seen in attempts to identify the Western world as the source of all evil, which supposedly makes any form of peaceful coexistence with it impossible and prompts a decisive “metaphysical battle.”
The document emphasizes that the Russian Orthodox Church, through its rhetoric and policies, serves as the basis for the territorial expansion of the Russian state. At the same time, despite the pronounced anti-Western ethos of its existence, the ROC actively uses international ecumenical platforms, especially the World Council of Churches, for its own purposes. It also engages in populism, exploiting the language of “traditional values” and referring to the need for existential self-defence against imaginary threats from Western civilization.
The problem with the ideology under study from a theological perspective lies in its attempts to subordinate human beings, who are called to be the priceless image of God, to the interests of an absolutized civilizational entity. The document notes that the threefold ministry of Christ as King, Prophet, and Priest “can give clear contour to what it means as churches to resist empire and promote peace: serve passionately, speak boldly and pray faithfully.”
The conference resolution also emphasises the need to take the following steps: to undermine the practice of misusing the concept of “holy war”, to debunk any attempts to sacralise political power, and to cultivate skills to counter propaganda and disinformation. It is also important to “cultivate theological literacy that can recognise and challenge the misuse of religious language, for example, by resisting the temptation to confuse the Reign of God with any given political entity or form of rule.”
The conference program is available here: https://ceceurope.org/storage/app/media/2025-news/Resisting%20Emprire_Promoting%20Peace.pdf
The full text of the Conference Statement is available here: https://ceceurope.org/storage/app/media/2025-news/Helsinki%20Conference%20statement_final.pdf
