The silence of some Christians regarding the constant Russian attacks on churches

Yesterday, Ukraine experienced another display of Vladimir Putin's dictatorship's strategy of terror in its aggression against that country.

Russia attacked and burned one of the oldest and most important churches in Ukraine
Russia has attacked nearly 600 Christian churches in Ukraine: what propagandists are keeping quiet about

In the early hours of the morning, Russia launched a drone attack that set fire to the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, one of the oldest and most important Christian churches in Ukraine, dating back to the 11th century and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This attack has caused serious damage to the church, which was previously destroyed by the Soviet dictatorship in 1941, as part of a systematic campaign against Christian churches that Putin's dictatorship is now replicating with its attacks on Ukraine.

Last year, the Ukrainian government published detailed data indicating that Russian invaders had already attacked nearly 600 churches and Christian buildings in Ukraine, a figure that a year later has already been surpassed, with events as recent as the Russian attack on the Bernardine Monastery in Lviv (a historic building of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church), Russian attacks on two Orthodox churches on Good Friday (a particularly important holiday in the Christian calendar) and, at the end of May, the destruction of an Evangelical church in Balakliya.

These systematic attacks by the invaders against Christian sites in Ukraine demonstrate two things. First, the utter contempt of Putin's dictatorship for the holy sites of Christianity, an infamous attitude that was especially evident yesterday with the attack on the Dormition Cathedral. And second, the Kremlin's criminal desire to destroy Ukraine's historical and cultural heritage, something in which Putin's terrorist regime rivals the terrorist regimes of Hitler and Stalin, and which is part of the Russian dictator's genocidal strategy to massacre the Ukrainian people and erase their identity, which is the ultimate goal of this invasion.

Faced with this wave of crime, the silence of some Christians is particularly scandalous, as they always find an excuse to demonize Israel. We saw this three months ago with the scandal surrounding an incident involving the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem regarding the restrictions imposed on Jews, Muslims, and Christians by the Iranian attacks. Many of those who complained then are now completely silent about yesterday's Russian attack, just as they have been over the past four years with the hundreds of other Russian attacks against Ukrainian churches.

I cannot say for sure what motivates this silence. In many cases it will be a lack of information (these Russian attacks on churches are being omitted by many media outlets), but in other cases the motivation is not difficult to imagine. There are Christians whose hatred for Israel is only matched by their sympathy for Putin's Russia, a sympathy fueled by the Kremlin's propaganda outlets and which overlooks things like Putin's dictatorship's support for the Western far left, his efforts to whitewash communism and his tributes to Soviet criminals, even to the worst of all, the dictator and mass murderer Stalin, whom Putin asked Poland to thank three years ago after invading that Catholic country, imposing a communist dictatorship, and deporting many Poles to Siberia.

In that list we could also include Putin's alliance with some of the dictatorships that most persecute Christians in the world, such as North Korea, Iran, Cuba and communist China, and the fact that he approved an abortion law very similar to those promoted by the socialists in Spain. None of this prevents some from still seeing Putin today as a great champion of Christians and a major conservative figure, and Moscow as a third Rome. Once again, there is none so blind as he who will not see.

Moreover, that among Putin's Christian admirers there is at the same time an evident phobia towards Israel is no longer anything strange. It is regrettable and shameful, certainly, but not surprising, since if anything characterizes the extreme right (the real one) it is anti-Semitism and admiration for dictators who pretend to have conservative ideas, even though in reality they are merely anti-liberal positions shared equally by both extremes, which is perhaps what explains why lately we are seeing certain Christians supporting Russia and Iran and flirting with the communist extreme left, while Putin destroys hundreds of churches in Ukraine and while the Islamist dictatorship of Tehran massacres its own citizens for demanding freedom, that freedom which is sorely missed by, among others, the Christians of Iran.

I conclude with a quote from the Gospel of Saint Luke (chapter 19, verse 40): "I tell you the truth, if they keep silent, the stones will cry out."

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Photo: Andrii Sybiha.