Giving a blessing to a nuclear weapon is possible even though such arms “have tremendous destructive power,” Konstantin Tatarintsev, an archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church, told RIA Novosti on Saturday.
Sanctifying something that “sows death” might normally be considered “unacceptable,” Tatarintsev, who is the first deputy head of the Synodal Department for the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Services, said. Yet, nuclear arms are also “the weapons of containment,” he explained. Their purpose is to ensure that no other nations that possess such weapons could use them against Russia, the cleric said, adding that “it is a guarantee of peace.”
“Blessing it not for it to be used for the purpose specified but for it to have a [containment] effect and guarantee peace is entirely acceptable,” he said. The cleric also expressed his hope that nuclear weapons would “never be used because it would mean self-destruction, insanity. That is unacceptable for any side in a conflict.”
According to Tatarintsev, the prayer used to bless a weapon goes back to the Middle Ages. It places a personal spiritual responsibility on its wielder not to misuse it for evil ends. “Military offenses such as marauding and such are thus unacceptable,” he said. “When a weapon is blessed, a warrior has responsibility not only to his commander… but to God as well.”
The archpriest also said that pretty much any weapon, including the nuclear triad, can be considered “sacred” when it is used to protect “our fatherland and the holy sites located on its territory.”
Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has repeatedly called on parishioners to support the troops engaged in the Russian military’s Ukraine campaign. He says these soldiers are “sacrificing their lives to protect our Orthodox people in Donbass.”
Even before the conflict between Moscow and Kiev broke out in 2022, Patriarch Kirill had been accusing Kiev of suppressing and discriminating against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the nation’s largest church, which was also “an integral” part of the Moscow Patriarchate. He cited physical attacks on church leaders, relics, and places of worship. Kiev eventually responded by putting him on a wanted list for supposedly violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
The Ukrainian authorities also stepped up their crackdown against the UOC, accusing its clergymen of being “agents of Moscow.” Last year, the Ukrainian government introduced a bill that would pave the way for an eventual ban of the UOC. The legislation, however, has since been stalled.