Symphonia

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

Symphonia (Greek: συμφωνία "accord") is a normative theory or concept in Eastern Orthodox Christian theological and political thought, especially within the Eastern Roman and Russian Empires, which posits that church and state are to complement each other, exhibiting mutual respect with neither institution presuming to dominate the other.[1]

Chilling says it all but religion has almost always allied itself to government as its all about the money ... and power, something most readily seen in what's happening in Ukraine and Russia's way to rationalize why this atrocity is happening.

Beneath the gold onion domes of the Danilov Monastery a few miles south of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin’s chief shaman explains why Russia is hell-bent on destroying Ukraine.

“If we see [Ukraine] as a threat, we have the right to use force to ensure the threat is eradicated,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill recently preached to his church’s 90 million faithful followers. “We have entered into a conflict which has not only physical but also metaphysical significance. We are talking about human salvation, something much more important than politics.”

The wartime coalition between Putin and his patriarch is called symphonia, an ironclad alliance between church and state that assures reciprocal reverence, with neither institution presuming to dominate the other. Theologians have spent centuries bickering over the fine points, which have now impaled 44 million Ukrainians as the victims of a bloodthirsty land-grab that Putin and the Patriarch have packaged as a holy campaign to cleanse souls.

The word assume applies.

To be sure, the only lingering question is how far into repression and hideous cruelty can Putin and his patriarch descend before the means no longer justify the ends.

Byzantine and Orthodox church historian Henry Hopwood-Philipps reckons NATO and all those who stand against Putin’s klepto-theocratic regime are in for a long wait. “The information war, the military war against Putin looks to be effective,” Hopwood-Philipps says. “But for all the West’s digital gunpowder, we’re up against nearly 700 years of a deeply entrenched otherworldly belief system.”

“Putin and Kirill are attached at the hip.”

As the patriarch sees it, Ukrainians are sinners. “Many people out of weakness, stupidity, ignorance and most often a willingness to justify sin condemned by the Bible is a test of our ability to profess faith in our Savior,” Kirill has told his flock.

The dark ages loom.