The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. Absolutely free. Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.

Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Each week, we ask a few of our writers to read their piece from the magazine aloud.

On today's episode, Mark Drew explains how Putin

weaponised the Russian Orthodox Church. Luke Coppin says the war in Ukraine has vitalized Poland's

Catholic Church, and Edward Berens reads his notes on violets. First up, Mark Drew.

In the week before Orthodox Lent began, some 233 Russian Orthodox priests published a petition

calling for peace. The signatories spoke of the Fratricidal War in Ukraine, with a call for an

immediate ceasefire, and deplored the trial that our brothers and sisters in Ukraine were undeservedly subjected to.

Anyone who knows how authority is exercised in the Russian Orthodox Church

and how closely it has allied itself with Putin's authoritarian state

will recognise the cleric's courage. But what effect is it likely to have on the

attitude of the highest authorities in the church? To answer these questions, we need to understand

not only the century's own link between political power and religious authority in Russia,

but also the record of the key players.

One major figure is Kirill I, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia.

He is an enthusiastic supporter of Putin's, and has not relented in his praise for the war.

In his sermon on forgiveness Sunday, he described Russia's military operation as

justified and almost sacred. Repeating accusations of genocidal behaviour toward the breakaway

Russian entities in the East, he complained that Ukrainians were waging a war more sinister

at the metaphysical level, against

Russia and against Christianity, by backing immoral causes like gay and transgender rights.

Kirill's endorsement provides a religious gloss for the Kremlin's ideology of a Rusky Mir or Russian world.

...