Interview by Xhabir Deralla

For Father Sergiy Berezhnoy, a priest of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Russia’s war against Ukraine is not only a military assault on a sovereign country. It is also a war fought through history, identity, language and religion, and through what he calls “political Orthodoxy.” Berezhnoy serves as dean of the first OCU parish opened after the Tomos of autocephaly in 2019.

Berezhnoy speaks about this not only as a theologian and priest of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, but from deeply personal experience. Born in Myrnohrad and raised in Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, he grew up within the religious environment of the Moscow Patriarchate and recalls taking part, as a young altar boy, in distributing materials promoting the ideology of the Russkiy Mir (Русский мир – Russian world). Years later, through theological study and encounters with theologians abroad, he came to see that ideology as a distortion of Christianity and an instrument of political domination. Today, his mother and brother remain in Pokrovsk, and he says he has no way of knowing whether they are alive.

In this interview for CIVIL MEDIA, Berezhnoy describes the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as a shield against Russian “spiritual missiles” and argues that the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church have systematically used religious belief, cultural identity and historical narratives to draw Ukrainians closer not to Christ, but to Moscow’s imperial project.

His testimony becomes particularly powerful when he recalls serving as a military chaplain after the liberation of Bucha. Confronted with the bodies of civilians and murdered children, he says he wanted to take up a weapon himself — only to be told by a Ukrainian commander that his role as a priest was precisely to help soldiers preserve their morality and avoid becoming like those they were fighting.

The conversation also addresses religious freedom under Russian occupation, the role of Moscow-linked clergy, relations between the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Macedonian Orthodox Church, and Ukraine’s place in Europe.

His appeal to the Macedonian Orthodox Church is simple and direct:

“Be a Good Samaritan for us.” And his broader message extends well beyond church relations: Ukraine, he says, is defending not only its own freedom and identity, but Europe as well.

The interview was conducted in the garden of the St. Michael’s Monastery complex in Kyiv.

Sergiy Berezhnoy: My name is Sergiy Berezhnoy, and I am a priest of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. I am dean of the first parish of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine that was opened after we received the Tomos of autocephaly in January 2019.

My personal background is also important for our conversation. I was born in the Donetsk region, in Myrnohrad, and I grew up in Pokrovsk. My mother and my brother are still in Pokrovsk, and I have no contact with them, no possibility of knowing whether they are alive or not.

So, like other Ukrainians, I live in this reality of Russian aggression and the consequences of the Russkiy Mir since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

What has been the role of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in supporting Ukrainian society spiritually, morally and humanitarianly, as well as in terms of national resilience and defence?

Sergiy Berezhnoy: This is a very good question, and it contains several different topics. I would like to begin with a short history, because it is important for understanding my answer.

As I mentioned, I was born in the Donetsk region. There was a huge network of parishes there under the Moscow Patriarchate. I was an altar boy around the year 2000, and I remember how other boys, clergy and I distributed many papers in those parishes supporting one political figure rather than another.

There was already a kind of propaganda of the Russkiy Mir. I prefer to call it political Orthodoxy, and it was a great tragedy.

We distributed materials saying, for example, that Ukraine, Russia and Belarus were like the Holy Trinity: just as it is impossible to divide the Holy Trinity, it was supposedly impossible to divide these three countries.

This heresy of the Russkiy Mir was spread throughout the network of parishes in the Donetsk region, especially where I was born. It was treated almost as another dogma of Orthodoxy: you had to believe in it. If you did not believe it and did not confess it, you were considered a bad believer because you supposedly believed in the wrong values. Only Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church, we were told, could produce the “right” values.

At that time, for me, it really was a dogma, because my priest told me we had to follow it. The priests in our area had received the blessing of the metropolitan of Donetsk.

And I was very proud to distribute those papers. I believed that I was serving God, because my priest had told me as a boy: “Believe me, when you distribute these papers, you work for God. You are doing a good thing, because we must be one.”

Later, when I finished theological school in Kyiv, I understood that this was a huge heresy. Later still, when I studied abroad and discussed it with theologians from different countries, they told me the same thing: this is heresy. This is political Orthodoxy. This is aggressive Orthodoxy.

It has nothing to do with Christ. It is about politics, not Christ.

If you want to follow the way of salvation, you need to think about Christ, about love, mercy and God’s grace, and about how to find what unites us rather than what divides us.

Later I understood the wider problem: Russia, the Russian Federation and the Russian Orthodox Church were using religion and the religious feelings of Ukrainians against us — not to bring us closer to Christ, but to bring us closer to the ideology of the Kremlin and to rebuild the Soviet Union.

If we return to your question, then yes: the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is a shield against this propaganda. It is like a dome protecting us from Russian spiritual missiles that seek to destroy our Orthodoxy.

It is a great tragedy that the Russian Orthodox Church — people whom we once called our brothers and sisters — chose this political path. They did not choose to confess Christ as the martyrs did in the first centuries. Instead, they chose to help the Kremlin’s evil: to kill people rather than save them, and to use the network of churches against our culture, against our history and, first of all, against Christ and His commandment of love.

This political Orthodoxy is a great tragedy. I think it is also a new subject for investigation, not only for theologians but for scholars in many different fields, so that future generations can be protected from this dangerous propaganda, which in my opinion is comparable to Nazi propaganda.

That is why the Orthodox Church of Ukraine plays such an important role today. We lead people to Christ without politics. We lead people towards the love of Christ without creating new obstacles on their way to Him.

When Russia’s full-scale invasion began, the Primate of our Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Epiphanius, blessed our defenders to protect us. Many chaplains were immediately sent from our Church to serve in the army, and I was one of the chaplains caring for soldiers.

I want you to understand the moral logic and moral level of our soldiers.

I was with soldiers immediately after what happened in Bucha, where Ukrainians were massacred. The soldiers took me there to help people and deliver humanitarian aid to territory liberated from Russian occupation. It was still a battlefield zone.

With my own eyes, I saw what this so-called Russian Orthodoxy had done in Bucha.

It is impossible to do such things in the name of Christ. I still cannot find the right words to describe that tragedy. I can still see the bodies of people in the streets. I can still see the children who were killed by Russian soldiers.

When I saw all this, I told my commander: “You know, even though I am a priest, I will take a weapon and go to protect our children, Ukrainians, women — everyone.”

Yes, I am a priest. I cannot take up a weapon. But at that moment, when you see how many people Russia is killing in Ukraine, you have only one desire: to help our soldiers protect our children, our women and our future.

My commander told me: “Calm down, Father. Calm down. We understand you. We understand you very well. But please, be a priest. Help us maintain the highest moral level in this fight. We do not want to lose our morality in this war, because if we lose our morality while fighting the Russians, we will become like Russian soldiers. That is why, Father, we need your help. We need the help of priests. We need spiritual and psychological care, because we need to understand that when we defend our country and our people, God is with us.”

Our priests have never said: go and occupy somebody else’s territory. We are not saying that Ukrainians and Russians are one people. No. We are an independent country with a very long history.

That is why our Church has done, and continues to do, everything it can to help our nation, our people, our soldiers, our state and our country defend not only Ukraine, but also European history and European society from destructive and totalitarian influence.

This is why our Church plays such an important role in society today. We provide people with social and humanitarian assistance. We have opened many centres where we continue to help those in need.

And something else is very important: we must keep our Orthodoxy free from political influence.

We do not want to replace the Russian world with a Ukrainian world.

No.

We want to preserve the world of Christ, which is common to every Orthodox Church.

Father Sergiy Berezhnoy, St. Michael’s Monastery complex in Kyiv, 23 July 2026 (photo: Xhabir Deralla/CIVIL)

How does Moscow weaponize religion in its war against Ukraine? You have already mentioned several aspects of this, but in that context, what should European societies understand about this dimension of Russian hybrid warfare — the weaponization of religion, and even the weaponization of belief in God?

Sergiy Berezhnoy: You raise a very important question.

The weaponization of religion is not something new. It has happened throughout history. We can even read in the Gospel that there may come a time when people kill others while believing that they are doing so in the name of God.

But God never wishes people to kill one another. God wants us to live in peace, mutual understanding and cooperation.

Unfortunately, what we see today is that one Orthodox Church has chosen a military path. It has chosen political religion rather than Orthodoxy. And this is a great tragedy for the entire Orthodox world.

How can we prevent the weaponization of religion? First of all, I think we must follow God’s commandments: to love God and to love one another.

It is also important for churches to cooperate, especially Orthodox Churches. Cooperation helps us learn from one another — from the good things in our histories, but also from the bad things and from how we managed to overcome them.

You can look at the dark pages of your own history; we can look at the dark pages of Ukrainian history; every country can do this. Even if something terrible happened in our history, we can use that experience to ensure that it is not repeated in the future.

Russia likes to say: “We can do it again.”

Ukraine says: No. We do not want to repeat tragedies in which people die, people lose everything and religion becomes an instrument of war instead of an instrument of peace and reconciliation.

Today, I think we have a very important opportunity to learn from the Ukrainian experience — from how we have confronted political Orthodoxy in our country and how we have resisted the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine.

Of course, that influence has not disappeared completely. There is still a network of parishes whose members continue to recognize Patriarch Kirill as their patriarch, even after everything he has done, even after he blessed Russia’s war against Ukraine.

There are still people who recognize him as their patriarch. They are not many, but they exist.

The problem is that these people have been poisoned by the propaganda I mentioned earlier — the idea that Ukraine, Russia and Belarus constitute some kind of indivisible unity. They have been poisoned by this heresy and by theological propaganda.

We need to find a way to help people escape from this false reality of the Russkiy Mir.

And when we speak about Ukraine and Europe, I think Europeans — theologians, but not only theologians, also people responsible for European security — can learn from Ukraine about how Europe itself can be protected.

Unfortunately, the European Union also has a large network of Russian Orthodox parishes. According to investigations and official information, there have been Russian priests who were involved in intelligence activities.

This is a great tragedy: they replaced the Christian mission with a spy mission for the Kremlin.

We have encountered this in Ukraine, in the Donetsk region and elsewhere. There were priests belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate who passed information to Russia, including coordinates and information about the locations of Ukrainian forces and soldiers. Russian forces then attacked those positions.

There is official information about such cases from Ukrainian intelligence and security services.

So yes, there were priests from the Moscow jurisdiction who were working not for Christ, but in the interests of Russian intelligence. This is a great tragedy.

How do we stop this?

As I said before, we need deeper relations between churches. We need broader ecumenical relations between different religions and confessions.

For me, ecumenical relations are an opportunity to find ways to help one another and to recognize one another as children of God.

I understand that each confession professes Christ in a different way, but we have something in common: love for God. And through that love, we should develop our relationship with one another and find a way to prevent religion from being weaponized.

It is important to have conferences and dialogue where Ukraine and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine can share our experience. It was very difficult for us to overcome the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church.

You need to understand what the Moscow Patriarchate did in Ukraine: it used our culture, our language, our history and our faith against us.

For example, they promoted the idea that in Ukraine we should pray only in Church Slavonic.

But we can pray in any language. We can pray in Ukrainian, in English, in Greek, in Chinese — in any language. We remember the gift of Pentecost: we can use different languages to give glory to Christ.

I remember that when I was a priest under the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine, the use of the Ukrainian language was effectively rejected in religious life. Ukrainian was treated almost as if it were the language of pagans or barbarians — something you could use in secular life, but not in church.

There was another problem as well. We received many heretical ideas through the Moscow Patriarchate because they tried, in effect, to replace Christ.

When we are with Christ, we understand freedom properly — the freedom of our own will and respect for the freedom of other people, because Christ teaches us this. We do not want to create war. We do not want violence against any country or any people.

But the Moscow Patriarchate weaponized religion in Ukraine.

It promoted the idea that Ukrainian culture is really Russian culture, that Ukrainians are actually Russians who have simply forgotten that they are Russian.

This is the same narrative used by Russian propaganda.

And you need to understand where such thinking leads. Assimilation can lead to genocide.

They tried to use religion, and Orthodoxy in particular, as a form of soft invasion of Ukraine — gradually creating the conditions in which Ukrainians would become subjects, even slaves, of the Russian Empire.

But we want to live in an independent country.

We want to live in a country where we have freedom, where we have the possibility to profess our Orthodox faith, and where people of other religions can profess their faith as well.

We respect everyone.

Our understanding of Orthodoxy is open, and we seek friendship with others.

There is one more important part of your question: how can we protect ourselves from the weaponization of religion?

Education is essential.

I understand that not everyone is interested in theology. People may study engineering, nuclear science, work in factories or pursue completely different professions. But I think it is still important for people to have some basic knowledge of theology and religion.

One of the ways Russia was able to weaponize religion in Ukraine was by exploiting the insufficient theological knowledge of some Ukrainian priests who belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate.

What is the situation of religious freedom in the temporarily occupied territories, especially for clergy and believers who do not accept the Russian occupation, the weaponized version of religion, and Moscow’s religious control?

Sergiy Berezhnoy: I think the situation is similar to that under any totalitarian regime: you can live within such a regime only if you support it.

Representatives of any religion in the occupied territories are persecuted or prohibited if they do not support Russian aggression.

I would remind you of what happened at the beginning of this war, after the Maidan, when Russia occupied Crimea — which is part of Ukraine — and began its invasion of the Donetsk region.

Four Protestants, as I recall, were among the first to be killed there. They were killed by pro-Russian separatists and Russian forces. Churches were also seized and destroyed in the Donetsk region.

They destroyed everything that could remind people of Ukraine — the Ukrainian language, our history, our traditions, everything that could help preserve or restore a Ukrainian understanding of life in our own country.

Unfortunately, in the occupied territories there is no freedom.

And I am not speaking only about religious freedom. I am speaking about every sphere of life.

There is only an illusion of freedom, and even that illusion exists only as long as you support the occupation and Moscow’s totalitarian regime.

Father Sergiy Berezhnoy, St. Michael’s Monastery complex in Kyiv, 23 July 2026 (photo: Xhabir Deralla/CIVIL)

These are all very important questions, and they are related to Russian hegemony and imperialism, to war crimes and genocidal policies directed against Ukraine and other nations as well.

I would like to ask you one question about the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Macedonian Orthodox Church.

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine has shown openness and recognition towards the Macedonian Orthodox Church, while relations in the opposite direction appear to remain cautious — or, more precisely, unresolved. How do you see the future of relations between the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Macedonian Orthodox Church? And what would mutual recognition mean for both churches and for the faithful in Ukraine and North Macedonia?

Sergiy Berezhnoy: Thank you very much for this question.

For me, as a Ukrainian priest of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, what is most important is always to follow Christ. Christ says in the Gospel that all should be one. Christ calls us to unity.

So, if we want to follow Christ, we must try to find what unites us, not what divides us.

In that light, when you ask me how relations between our two churches could develop, I think we first need to understand what we expect from one another during this Russian aggression.

My answer is very short.

I ask the Orthodox Church in North Macedonia: please, be a Good Samaritan for us.

This is very important.

I think the example of the Good Samaritan contains everything we need for the future relationship between our churches.

Be a Good Samaritan for us.

We are suffering. We are not only facing Russian aggression; we are facing what I consider a genocide. Every day our children, our women and our people are dying. Our Orthodox churches in Ukraine are being destroyed, as are our history and everything that reminds us of love, freedom and the possibility of living in peace rather than war.

Please, be with us.

Through the example of the Good Samaritan, we can build and develop good relations, because we confess the same Lord Jesus Christ. We confess the same love of Christ, which is the same for you and for us.

So, be a Good Samaritan for us.

That is my main answer.

Final reflection

I would also ask people to understand who we are and what Ukraine is.

Some people, under the influence of Russian propaganda, think that Ukraine is simply trying to protect its independence today, as though this were something new for us and something for which we are suddenly paying a huge price.

That is also part of Russian propaganda.

No.

We are defending our identity, our freedom and our historical roots.

When we speak about Ukraine, we should remember that Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, has a very long history. It is one of Europe’s ancient cities.

To understand why this war is happening, and why we are defending ourselves and our history, we must remember the baptism of Kyivan Rus.

When Prince Volodymyr chose Christianity and baptized the people of Kyivan Rus, Christianity came to our land through our Mother Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It brought us not only the path to Christ, but also knowledge, learning and many things that helped our society develop.

Through the baptism of Kyivan Rus, Prince Volodymyr brought us not only to Christ; he also made us part of the ancient European family.

So today Ukraine is not fighting only for Ukrainian freedom.

Today we are defending Ukraine, but we are defending Europe as well.

And I think it is time for Europe to restore its own family — a family to which Ukraine has always belonged.

That is why, both at the level of our national identity and our Christian identity, we cannot accept the Russkiy Mir or Russian domination over us. We have our own history, just as your people have their history and every other nation has its own history.

I sometimes compare this to a mosaic.

A mosaic consists of many pieces of glass of different colours and different sizes. When sunlight passes through them, we see beautiful light and many different colours.

But that beauty is possible precisely because the mosaic contains so many different pieces of glass.

For me, this mosaic is like God’s creation.

God created us with many nations, many traditions, many histories and, if we speak about Orthodoxy, many Orthodox Churches — as well as many other religious traditions.

For me, it is important to preserve every nation, every country, every language, every tradition and every religion — everything that makes us different.

But at the same time, we must also preserve everything that can unite us.

It is not time to spend our money on missiles and on ways of killing one another.

It is time to spend our resources on helping one another survive.

Just imagine all the money Russia has spent on killing people, destroying our infrastructure, destroying churches and destroying so much here in Ukraine.

That money could have been spent on science, on space programmes, on exploring the world around us.

God has given humanity an almost unlimited world to explore.

But in order to do that, we first have to stop Russia together.

And I also believe that after this war there must be accountability — not only for Putin, but also for Patriarch Kirill and for the theologians who helped him justify this aggression.

There must be justice, because we do not want this history to repeat itself.

I think this must become part of the agenda not only of Christian leaders, but also of leaders from other religious traditions and of European political leaders as well.

Republication: This interview may be republished under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, with clear attribution to CIVIL MEDIA and Xhabir Deralla, a link to the original publication, and an indication of any changes or translations made.