Orthodox Church’s “Traditional Values” Bolster Putin’s Wartime Rhetoric, New Book Reveals

On 10 April 2025, Reli­gion Unplugged report­ed that Putin’s regime has strate­gi­cal­ly aligned with Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church teach­ings on “tra­di­tion­al val­ues” to strength­en his posi­tion dur­ing the Ukraine inva­sion. The arti­cle begins:

How The Ortho­dox Church Influ­ences Russ­ian Fam­i­lies And Putin’s Regime (REVIEW) Six months after the inva­sion of Ukraine, the Putin regime announced a doc­u­ment titled “State Pol­i­cy for the Preser­va­tion and Strength­en­ing of Tra­di­tion­al Russ­ian Spir­i­tu­al and Moral Val­ues.” The doc­u­ment aimed to shape the world­view of Rus­sians by out­lin­ing var­i­ous val­ues, includ­ing a “strong fam­i­ly.” Indeed, Putin has uti­lized the rhetoric sur­round­ing the tra­di­tion­al val­ues, which the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church has pro­mot­ed, for his own pur­pose in wartime. “Tra­di­tion­al val­ues,” espe­cial­ly fam­i­ly val­ues, are sig­nif­i­cant­ly cen­tral in the ROC teach­ings. Why does it mat­ter? And why is the Putin regime embrac­ing these values?…

Read more

Key Points

• The Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church pro­motes strict fam­i­ly guide­lines as biopo­lit­i­cal con­trol, view­ing fam­i­ly as fun­da­men­tal to pre­serv­ing Russ­ian val­ues and nation­al survival.
• Ortho­dox Church lead­ers con­demn prac­tices like cohab­i­ta­tion (“unpaid pros­ti­tu­tion”) while pre­scrib­ing strict reg­u­la­tions for mar­ried cou­ples’ inti­mate lives.
• The Church’s focus on tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly struc­ture stems from demo­graph­ic con­cerns, with some mem­bers blam­ing “sin­is­ter forces” and LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ties for pop­u­la­tion decline.
• Putin strate­gi­cal­ly embraces Ortho­dox “tra­di­tion­al val­ues” rhetoric to jus­ti­fy Ukraine inva­sion and strength­en domes­tic sup­port for his author­i­tar­i­an regime.

Russian Orthodox Church and the Global National Conservative Alliance

Recent GIOR reports reveal how the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church (ROC) has become a cor­ner­stone of Russia’s efforts to lead the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA), uti­liz­ing reli­gious author­i­ty to advance Krem­lin geopo­lit­i­cal goals. A report on the ROC’s pro­mo­tion of tra­di­tion­al val­ues high­lights how Patri­arch Kir­ill frames Rus­sia as a defend­er of Chris­t­ian civ­i­liza­tion, lever­ag­ing anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and strict fam­i­ly guide­lines to jus­ti­fy the inva­sion of Ukraine and bol­ster domes­tic sup­port. Anoth­er analy­sis of GNCA lead­er­ship chal­lenges details cracks in Russia’s mes­sag­ing strat­e­gy, as tra­di­tion­al allies crit­i­cize the ROC’s com­plic­i­ty in wartime atroc­i­ties. Addi­tion­al­ly, a report on refram­ing the Ukraine war reveals how the Krem­lin shift­ed its rhetoric from “denaz­i­fi­ca­tion” to “de-Sataniza­tion” to appeal to U.S. right-wing audi­ences, tar­get­ing con­ser­v­a­tive evan­gel­i­cals and MAGA Repub­li­cans. These activ­i­ties under­score the ROC’s dual role as both a spir­i­tu­al author­i­ty and a geopo­lit­i­cal tool, posi­tion­ing Rus­sia as an ide­o­log­i­cal leader of glob­al con­ser­vatism while fos­ter­ing alliances with far-right move­ments worldwide.

Ref­er­ences:

1. The Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church Beyond Rus­sia: Glob­al Pre­ten­sions and Secu­ri­ty Concerns

2. Rus­si­a’s War on Ukraine: The Krem­lin’s Use of Reli­gion as a For­eign Pol­i­cy Tool

3. The Russ­ian Church — Spread­ing Putin’s Poison

4. The Krem­lin Mobilis­es the Church for War… for Africa

Dis­claimer: The GIOR uti­lizes AI to gen­er­ate sum­maries of news items, includ­ing the intro­duc­tion and the key points that fol­low. Any text fol­low­ing the key points is con­text added by GIOR edi­tors. Please ver­i­fy all infor­ma­tion before using. Images are also AI-gen­er­at­ed and are for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es only—they are meant to rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als con­cerned but should not be under­stood as “real-world” photography.