Beyond the cruelty of Good Friday, the critical question for many Christians is “Are you not the messiah? Save yourself and us!” [Luke 23:39] The man who was born to make his people free, submitted to the arbitrary power of human judgment. Sacrificial lamb dogma aside, why did he do it? And how is this relevant to the current strife in Ukraine?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky revisits the question in his famous parable “The Grand Inquisitor,” embedded in his epic novel The Brothers Karamazov, perhaps foreshadowing a modern Inquisitor. In his story Jesus has returned to fifteenth century Europe and faces the Grand Inquisitor, the executor of thousands of heretics. The Inquisitor questions Jesus, as if he were another heretic.

Hadst thou taken the world and Caesar’s purple, Thou wouldst have founded the universal state and have given universal peace. For who can rule men if not he who holds their conscience and their bread in his hands? We have taken the sword of Caesar, and in taking it, of course have rejected Thee and followed Him. Oh ages are yet to come of the confusion of free thought, of their science and cannibalism. Brothers Karamazov, “The Grand Inquisitor.”

The “Him” is the Devil who opposes “free thought and science.” The Inquisitor freely admits to forming an alliance with dark powers to get his work done.

The parable “The Grand Inquisitor” deserves our attention as a modern Caesar, Vladimir Putin, seeks to revive a Russian empire with the complicity of the Russian Orthodox Church.  The Grand Inquisitor argues in the parable that mankind is unable to bear free thought and science and will eventually revert to cannibalism, if left to pursue them.  He tells Jesus that he got it all wrong by giving his followers freedom of choice, instead of a universal state which would tell people what to think and believe. He tells Jesus, “tomorrow I shall condemn thee and burn thee at the stake as the worst of heretics. And the very people who have today kissed thy feet, tomorrow, at the faintest sign from me will rush to heap up the embers of thy fire.”

The parable is both shocking and revealing.  Would the Church burn the returning Christ at the stake? Would the mass of people turn instead to follow the Grand Inquisitor, who has taken away their freedom of thought? What is the attraction of a state that rules, not only the politics, but the breadth of human thinking?

The religious dimensions of the war in Ukraine have not been well publicized. The Orthodox Church in Ukraine separated itself from the Russian Orthodox Church three years ago. The nominal head of the Orthodox churches, Bartholomew I of Constantinople, supported the division, and  Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian President, called it “a great victory for the devout Ukrainian nation over the Moscow demons, a victory of good over evil, light over darkness.” Pretty savage language for the separation of churches, but these churches are in the thick of the battle for Ukraine.

The Russian church rejected the authority of Bartholomew, declaring the Russians were no longer in communion with the Orthodox churches at large. The Russian Orthodox Church began to set up their own branch churches around the globe, especially in Africa. They branded these new churches, reporting that their response was “Thank you Putin! Thank you, Patriarch Kirill!”  The Russian church had taken the spirit of imperial conquest from their comrade, Vladimir Putin. [https://unherd.com/2022/02/putins-spiritual-destiny/]

One of the proponents of the church/ state alliance is Vladimir Putin. His collaboration with Patrick Kirill, primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, is no secret.  The advancement of the church in tandem with state revives an ancient alliance between Christian Emperor Basil II and Vladimir I, a pagan leader of the Rus in 988. Vladimir, the current, knows his history.

The latter Vladimir has used the orthodoxy of the Russian church as a platform from which to critique the West. Commenting in a speech in 2013, he observed:

We see many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their  roots, including the Christian values that constitute Western civilization. They are denying moral principles and all the traditional identities: national, cultural, religious, and even sexual. They are implementing policies that equate large families with same sex partnerships, belief in God with the belief in Satan.’ (2013)

These moral condemnations ally Putin with the more conservative religious voices of Europe and the United States. His interest in uniting land masses has synthesized with others’ interest in a conservative morality, a contentious cause in the United States. In the pursuit of a common theology and morality Putin has become a representative of the religious and political right.

In light of the invasion of Ukraine with the complicity of the Russian Orthodox Church, it is easy to see Dostoevsky’s “The Grand inquisitor” as prophetic. The Inquisitor argues that mankind cannot cope with the kind of freedom Jesus offered them. Instead the common people desire strong leaders of both church and state. They will easily give up freedom, because it is uncomfortable, it burdens them with decisions they want to dismiss.  Therefore, by burning Christ at the stake, the Inquisitor taps into their deepest desires.

Here is where Putin and the Inquisitor merge as authority figures. Putin claims that religious citizens of the western nations desire “traditional identities: national, cultural, religious, and even sexual.” By invading Ukraine he is restoring what the people want: a stable ideology and theology that will enforce national unity. If the Inquisitor is right, then Putin is merely giving the invaded people what they want.

It is impossible to do justice to the brilliant analysis of “Grand Inquisitor” in a short essay. It deserves a separate reading and can be studied without reading the whole novel.  But the illustrious author raises the most important questions of the meaning of the life and death of Jesus at a time when we are celebrating them.

Did Jesus die for a universal church and state or for the right to choose his Way among many? Does humankind want to bear the burdens of freedom or prefer the certainty of a stable, immovable government?  How would Vladimir Putin and Russian Orthodox Primate Patrick Kirill deal with a resurrected Christ today? With acclamation or crucifixion? How would we?