Former Church insider Sergei Chapnin condemns the Russian Orthodox Church’s transformation into a political tool serving the Kremlin.
Newsroom (06/02/2026 Gaudium Press ) In a striking and uncompromising interview published on January 20, former Russian Orthodox Church insider Sergei Chapnin delivered an indictment that has reverberated far beyond ecclesiastical circles. Speaking to journalist Yevgeny Kiselyov in Bitter Winter, Chapnin—a onetime linchpin of the Church’s media and academic life—declared that the institution he once served has “stopped being part of the Christian world” and has become “a tool of power.”
Chapnin’s words carry particular weight. For years, he held senior roles within the Church, including editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, deputy chief editor of Church Herald, lecturer at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, and secretary of the Inter-Conciliar Board. Now exiled in New York, he serves as director of communications at the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University, observing from afar what he calls “a spiritual catastrophe” unfolding in his homeland.
The Church as a Political Instrument
At the heart of Chapnin’s critique lies his contention that the Russian Orthodox Church has departed from its spiritual mission and aligned itself wholly with state power. “The Church of Russia is no longer Christian,” he says uncompromisingly. The accusation is theological, not merely political. In his view, the Gospel has been replaced by propaganda; the Church now blesses war, repression, and violence rather than offering moral opposition.
Recent events triggered his assessment: the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service branding Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople “the Antichrist” and “the devil in the flesh,” President Vladimir Putin calling Russian soldiers “saviors” in his Christmas address, and Patriarch Kirill labeling critics of the regime “traitors to the Motherland.” Each episode, Chapnin argues, illustrates how faith has been conscripted into ideology. “Modern Russian Orthodoxy under Patriarch Kirill and Putin is a cheap quasi-religious cult,” he asserts. “Its goal is not faith, but serving state and geopolitical interests.”
A Church of War and Silence
Chapnin traces the Church’s final moral collapse to the onset of the war in Ukraine. “From that moment,” he says, “the Church finally stopped relying on the Gospel.” The institution that once claimed spiritual authority now sanctions violence and condemns dissent as heresy. “This is no longer a Church; it is a structure that supports war and power.”
Still, he notes that not all faith within Russia has been extinguished. There remain small communities of believers and priests who strive to live and act according to Christian principles. Yet the official hierarchy, he insists, “has strayed completely,” functioning as an arm of the Kremlin’s ideological apparatus.
The Vanished Confessor
Chapnin also calls attention to the curious silence surrounding Metropolitan Tikhon Shevkunov, often referred to in the media as Putin’s “spiritual advisor.” Once ubiquitous in Church and state ceremonies, Shevkunov has receded from public view following the fall of his close associate, former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was recently sentenced to 13 years in prison for corruption. Shevkunov had publicly defended Ivanov, calling him “a decent man” and expressing hope for “a positive outcome.” The Metropolitan’s quiet disappearance, Chapnin implies, speaks to growing discomfort and internal fracture within the ecclesiastical elite itself.
A Departure from Christianity
Chapnin’s remarks do not stem from bitterness alone; they come from a theologian who witnessed the internal mechanics of faith’s surrender to political calculation. “Today’s Church in Russia is not religion or spirituality; it is part of the state machinery,” he concludes. For him, this is not a metaphor but a doctrinal verdict: the Church, as an institution, has forsaken Christianity.
Yet he is careful to preserve a distinction: “There are individual communities that remain Christian, that strive to live in a Christian way,” he says. “But the official Church—that is the Church that has fallen away.”
Documenting the Break Between Faith and Power
Bitter Winter, long known for documenting the fusion of religion and authoritarianism, recognizes in Chapnin’s testimony a confirmation of what many observers have long suspected: that the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church no longer serves the Gospel but the state. Its bureaucracy, Chapnin argues, has undergone “a complete abandonment of Christian tradition, spiritual values, and theological heritage.”
With each blessing of war, each denunciation of dissent, and each sermon of allegiance to power, the Church deepens what Chapnin calls its “departure from Christianity.” In his view, what remains is no longer faith—but the machinery of faith’s betrayal.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Zenit News
Related Images:
