From WNYC Studios, it's Brian Lair, a daily politics podcast. It's Friday, April 22nd.

Of course, many Christians in the U.S. celebrated Easter last Sunday, but for those in the

Eastern Orthodox tradition,

it's coming up this Sunday, that most celebratory of Christian holidays has a level of tension

this year, as we've already said, especially in the Russian Orthodox Church, which has many

followers in Ukraine. The leader or patriarch of the Russian church is very much aligned with

Vladimir Putin, and his pronouncements of support have led to almost 300 Russian Orthodox priests

and deacon signing a letter calling for peace and over 300 Ukrainian Orthodox priests to petition

the Eastern Orthodox leadership for Kirill's ouster, that leader of

the Russian church who's aligned with Putin. To talk about the role religion has played in this

conflict and to take your calls if we have Eastern Orthodox listeners right now, I'm joined by

Ishan Therour, Washington Post Foreign Affairs columnist,

an author of their Today's World View newsletter, where he has written a column titled

the Christian nationalism behind Putin's war. Hi, Ashan, always good to have you. Welcome back to

WNYC.

It's great to be back with you. So Ishan, for people who haven't seen or heard this story yet, how supportive of the invasion of Ukraine has the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church been?

He's known as Patriarch Kirill. Am I saying the name right?

I believe so. I'm not a Russian speaker myself, but I think that sounds about right.

And Patriarch Kiriel, you know, you should really look at him as an extension of the Putin regime.

Of course, during the Soviet era, the church was suppressed in many ways.

Now, as Russia has emerged, as this kind of revantious power on the

world stage, the Russian Orthodox Church, based in Moscow, under the leadership of Patriarch

...