Father Marcus Walker

Church of England Priest Denounces Putin’s False ‘Christian Orthodox’ Faith

Collin Bastian on March 9, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military offensive against Ukraine has resulted in horrendous amounts of destruction and loss of life. Russia’s military estimates that it has lost 498 soldiers while taking the lives of 2,800 of Ukrainian troops; Ukraine, meanwhile, suggests that 5,800 Russians have died, while it has declined to note how many casualties its forces have suffered.

When such astounding carnage takes place between two supposedly Christian nations, it is important that Christian leaders have a powerful and decisive message to deliver, one that does more than just condemn unnecessary violence and death, as the officials of some denominations have offered in the preceding weeks.

Church of England officials have delivered strong statements regarding the invasion of Ukraine. At the outset of the war, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell released a joint statement condemning Putin, calling his attack “an act of great evil.”

Among the strongest denunciations of Putin’s actions was a sermon delivered by Fr. Marcus Walker on February 27 at St. Bartholomew the Great, the oldest parish church in London and the site of several sermons delivered by John Wesley. Walker, the Rector of Great St. Bart’s and a leading Church of England clergyman, made clear that the Russian forces were the unjust aggressors, remarking that “Vladimir Putin resolved to unleash hell on his neighbor.”

Walker began his homily by reciting W. H. Auden’s poem, Epitaph on a Tyrant, and drew comparisons between Putin and the tyrant in Auden’s poem, illustrating the similarity between the last line of the poem, “and when he cried, the little children died in the streets,” and the reported bombing of a Ukrainian kindergarten by Russian forces.

Walker’s invective against Putin was unabashed.

“A Christian Orthodox leader has unleashed unimaginable death and destruction upon a Christian Orthodox nation,” Walker declared. “He has seen the Gospel of peace and heard the words of love given to us and given to him by our God, and he has kissed the icons of the mother holding her child, and he has decided to trample untold numbers of children into the frost and mud of Ukraine and see how many mothers weep at the sight of their dead children.”

But Walker, who spent part of his childhood in Moscow, gave his congregation more than the necessary denunciation of Putin. Turning away from his focus on Russia, he expressed his admiration for the Ukrainian forces, emphasizing the way in which they have treated captured Russian forces, giving them “a telephone to call their mothers and tell them that they are still alive.”

The contrast between the two countries could hardly be starker.

“One Christian nation reminds us,” Walker said, “that loving the Prince of Peace does not incline us naturally towards peace ourselves. Another Christian nation has reminded us of the words of that Prince of Peace: love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you and persecute you.”

“This,” he continued, “is what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.” The way of the world, to “love your friends and hate your enemies, that is what leads us to kindergartens being bombed and cruise missiles being fired into tower blocks.” 

Still, Walker warned, “this does not mean you do not have enemies. The men sent over the borders from Russia and White Russia are the enemies of the people of Ukraine.” But importantly, he did not think this was sufficient to comprise a full picture of the Russian soldiers. “They are enemies and must be fought as such, and will, please God, be beaten. But they are still human. And in the face of the young conscripts, we see the face of Christ.”

Walker concluded his homily by reflecting on fallen humanity. “This war has reminded us that man’s inhumanity to man is never far from being unleashed, that our basest instincts are there for us to feed. But it has also reminded us that to feed them is a choice, and that we can say no.”

Despite our tendency to easily slip into fallenness, Walker reassured his congregation that “there is light in the darkness this morning.” That light, he contended, did not merely “come from the survival of a free people in free cities,” but instead was “coming from the way those free people have heard the message of their Savior, and have proved themselves by their actions to be…children of their Father, which is in heaven.”

May we all have the courage and clarity of Walker in this present moment to properly assess the threat and what our solutions ought to be. As the world rallies around Ukraine and continues to denounce Russia and Putin through various economic punishments, it is worth pondering how we can best show the love of God to all involved in the conflict: to our Ukrainian friends, obviously, but also to our apparent Russian enemies. For while it is good and noble to hope for Putin’s defeat, we need also to consider how Russia and her people may be reconciled to the global Christian community.

  1. Comment by Star Tripper on March 9, 2022 at 8:41 am

    It is wise to keep your mouth shut and not jump on the latest propaganda cause pushed by the same people who have been lying for years. It is becoming more and more apparent that Russia is striking down a criminal enterprise but I wouldn’t expect the Church of England to want that. The Cabal money laundering and human trafficking hub (and now we know bioweapons developer too) that is Ukraine is too valuable to the Enemy.

  2. Comment by Jeffrey Walton on March 9, 2022 at 10:36 am

    Thanks for your FSB talking points. We are capable of critiquing both an encroaching militant western secularism advanced by the left as well as authoritarian figures playing to the right. The gospel will always be in tension with a prevailing culture, and Russia is no exception.

  3. Comment by Phil on March 9, 2022 at 11:14 am

    Star Tripper,

    Putin is shelling cities, killing civilians, and even attacking known evacuation points in Ukraine. In perhaps his most reckless move yet, his men caused a serious fire in the country’s largest nuclear power plant, risking a radiation disaster greater than Chernobyl and one that would have potentially hurt his own soldiers as much as the Ukrainians. He is locking up journalists for criticizing the war (which he continues to insist on calling simply “a military operation”) and peaceful protesters in the street. He’s shut down access to certain social media platforms in order to try to keep his own people in the dark to what is really happening in Ukraine. His men are now randomly stopping people in public and demanding to see their cell phones to check if they have been “criticizing the state or the military” in their private conservations. And long before this war began, he was in the habit of invading other countries and redrawing their borders, arresting and even assassinating his own political opponents, and quite possibly engineering his own war in Chechnya to cement his own power. Whatever you’ve been told that might lead you think Putin is a hero instead of ruthless tyrant is a lie. Chances are whatever you heard originated from Russia itself.

  4. Comment by Douglas Ehrhardt on March 9, 2022 at 5:14 pm

    I’m sure the politicians,especially the Biden family had pure motives in their dealings with the government of Ukraine.

  5. Comment by td on March 9, 2022 at 5:34 pm

    Douglas ehrhardt- whether that is true or not, what in the world does it have to do with Putin invading and killing with the objective to conquer and rule Ukraine?

  6. Comment by Douglas E Ehrhardt on March 9, 2022 at 9:10 pm

    A whole lot.

  7. Comment by Theodore Miner on March 10, 2022 at 11:23 am

    What would we do without bold statements from the Church of England? They are against violence and war. These scholars must have carefully searched the scriptures for this insightful theological insight.

  8. Comment by Search4Truth on March 13, 2022 at 3:19 pm

    Why is everyone tiptoeing around so? It seems obvious to that we are seeing the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis party. We know their legacy in history, why can’t we just call this what it is?

  9. Comment by Daniel on March 14, 2022 at 11:07 am

    I would posit that Putin is closer to a reincarnation of Stalin. While young, Stalin actually was a seminary student before he went over to the “dark side.” As an interesting thought experiment would it make any difference to the intellectual elites if Putin declared he was transgender and because he was not given gender affirming treatment as a child, he now has anger issues as an adult and in reality he is just a victim?

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