Vincent Crane's book The Cross and the Sword: An Analysis of the Crisis of Russian Orthodoxy is a comprehensive critical study of the transformation of the Russian Orthodox Church from a spiritual institution into an ideological apparatus that legitimizes state aggression. The starting point for the author's investigation was September 25, 2022, when, by order of Patriarch Kirill, all parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church began to recite the "Prayer for Holy Russia," marking a decisive and symbolic rejection of the Gospel commandments in favor of a political alliance with the authorities.
Vincent Crane argues that the roots of the current crisis lie in the very foundation of the modern Moscow Patriarchate, which was created as a structure subordinate to the security services, as well as in a conscious departure from Christian teaching.
The author shows that the ROC's support for the war was not a spontaneous mistake, or an isolated deviation, but rather constitutes a systemic pathology based on three pillars.
The first pillar is theological collapse: militaristic rhetoric and the concept of "holy war" have supplanted Christ's commandments of peacemaking and love for one's enemies. The decree of the 27th World Russian People's Council officially declared the war "holy," presenting the world as a struggle between "Holy Russia" and "the West, which is portrayed as having fallen into Satanism."
The second pillar is the so-called Symphony with power: the Moscow Patriarchate was created by Stalin in 1943 as a political instrument of the state and was controlled by the KGB for decades. The future Patriarch Kirill was registered as a secret service agent under the pseudonym "Mikhailov." The doctrine of the "Russian World" became the theological justification for imperial expansion.
The third pillar is repression against dissent: the system of suppression, previously tested on new religious organizations and the independent communities of priests Georgy Kochetkov and Vladimir Golovin, was later turned against the anti-war clergy after 2022. Archpriest Alexei Uminsky was defrocked for calling for prayers for peace, and priest Ioann Koval was punished for replacing the word "victory" with "peace" in a prayer.
The author names Alexander Dvorkin, the creator of the pseudoscientific "sectology," as a key figure in the repressive system, having transformed the fight against "sects" into a tool for suppressing any dissent. His methodology was used to eliminate independent priests, and after 2022, to persecute anti-war clergy.
Crane concludes that the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has completed its transformation into a state-militarized organization, in which Christian symbols are used to serve a totalitarian ideology.