No, the Russian Orthodox Church won't make you more manly

And Patriarch Kirill is a horny, rich liar.

If you’ve followed Russia’s war on Ukraine in forensic detail, and have in-depth knowledge of how the Russian Orthodox Church actually functions, the above statements won’t come as a surprise.

But with young men in Texas and elsewhere joining Russian churches with the hopes that conversion to their primitive cult will make them more masculine, we need to talk about what’s going on in detail.

First of all, let’s get one thing straight: There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be more masculine.

You want to get off your ass and start a family? Good. You want to train, be in physical shape, earn a living, and provide for others? EXCELLENT.

My son pumps my gas for me. He shops for me and carries my groceries when I am tired and just want to sit in the car. He fixes things around the house, and has already started to earn cash here and there by fixing up his classmates’ computer hardware. He is working on his deadlift. He would like to go back to training at the range. He is helping me train and raise an enormous dog.

While I don’t like pressuring my son, we have household rules and expectations, chief among them is being respectful and helpful. I don’t claim to be a perfect parent, but I think kids need goals and discipline, and boys overwhelmingly need to learn how to use their strength for good.

Yes, this philosophy can and should apply to girls too! I’m strong for a woman, I make my own money, and I don’t like the idea that girls should be helpless and demure (I tried that route in my 20s, mostly to please my mother, it didn’t go so well).

But I do think that boys, who are physically stronger than women on average (I don’t understand how this became a controversial statement in some parts of society), need a particular kind of guidance on how to treat women, how to relate to constantly shifting masculine hierarchies and the violence often present in them, and how to generally be in the world as men.

So everything that I am about to tell you comes from a place of love and concern. Still with me? Awesome, let’s take a look at what the Russian Orthodox Church is actually all about:

Patriarch Kirill is doing the bidding of the Russian security services.

The fact that Kirill worked closely with the KGB, turned FSB, was not a controversial topic in Moscow when he first became patriarch.

He got his start in Geneva in the 1970s, and any Soviet citizen working in Geneva in that decade was not there to just enjoy Raclette, baptize babies, and hang out.

Kirill himself has frequently spoken of his love for Switzerland, where his career as a priest took off. Spying was merely part of the package, and journalists who dug into archives from that era, found that the Swiss police authorities plainly stated that Kirill was a “KGB agent.”

Not only that, but it has been common knowledge, for years and years, that Kirill ran a tobacco business, with the church both acting as cover and reaping the prophets (the link above goes into some detail; you can automatically translate it). Here’s an archived copy featuring a discussion of Kirill’s business activities in mainstream Russian media (the original has been scrubbed, like many such pages today are scrubbed), and a screenshot:

Note that the speaker here is trying his best to paint Kirill as a victim of smears. We should read between the lines, though. Power struggles in the Russian Orthodox Church were not new then, and they’re not new now. The speaker also notes that he doesn’t want to “get involved in church dealings, spare me, God.” This is fear. It’s direct acknowledgment of a common Russian problem - the church will come after you if you do, in fact, get involved in their dealings.

Here’s an archive copy of an article that calls Kirill “tobacco metropolitan” (this was when Kirill had not ascended to the office of patriarch), and makes claims that his own church colleagues were potentially trying to wash their hands of him. Again, nothing here was particularly controversial until Kirill went and became patriarch.

Patriarch Kirill is not some saintly monk

Back when I worked in Moscow, I spent a significant amount of time living not far from Kirill, in Zamoskvorechye. He lived in the lavish House on the Embankment, and I lived a few blocks east, on the Kosmodamianskaya Embankment, another historic location.

The historic house on the embankment. A place for many an elite condo owner, Kirill included.

As a journalist, I was VERY interested in a giant lawsuit that Kirill orchestrated against his neighbors over damages allegedly stemming from their repair efforts.

Kirill predictably won this lawsuit, but what’s interesting is that Lidia Leonova, a woman who was registered in Kirill’s lavish condo (note: Russia is totalitarian, you must be “registered” in a dwelling so that authorities can always find you, that hasn’t changed since the Soviet days) was technically the one who filed the lawsuit.

Leonova was referred to as a “cousin” of Kirill’s by slavish Orthodox bloggers. Everyone around me knew that it was complete BS.

In fact, my neighbors, who included retired hockey stars and Russian businessmen, joked that they hoped Kirill won’t grab more real estate in our area soon, because having him or his cronies/mistresses as neighbors would be legally precarious.

Not only that, but Leonova was known to have business ties to Kirill, and searches of old Russian newspapers revealed that in 2004 she was referred to as having “a warm relationship with Kirill.” The digital data on that has since been scrubbed - as mentioning the “warm relationship” became dangerous after Kirill became patriarch, though you can find echoes of this online if you poke around.

These typically trace back to the Russian journal Ogonyok, which was discontinued some time ago. Millions read Ogonyok. Millions know what Kirill is really about, but choose to not talk about it. Even in pre-war, pre-2014 Russia, talking about it could wreck your life and career.

Here’s a screenshot of Lenta citing Ogonyok on Kirill and Leonova’s “warm relationship”

In fact, being surrounded by Russian journalists at that time meant that I was always hearing about what the “rules” were and one of the cardinal rules of that era was simple: “Don’t go digging into the Russian Orthodox Church.” This applies to anyone with a “warm relationship” to the patriarch, this applies to inquiries into old tobacco businesses, and much more.

While we’re at it, let’s not forget the scandal that broke out when church officials photoshopped a ridiculously expensive Breguet watch out of a photo of Kirill.

Such scandals are not common anymore, because the media in Russia no longer exists, it’s just a PR machine for war and its cheerleaders. But Pepperidge Farm remembers.

The Russian Orthodox Church functions as a mob with a “spiritual” gloss

One of my close friends and colleagues in the Russian theater of the same era was a former Russian Orthodox nun who wrote excellent plays. I will not mention her name in this essay, because she still lives in Russia, and I don’t want any trouble for her - though if you dig into my own theater writings, you’ll probably find out more about her.

She wrote and spoke about being witness to shady business dealings, and how both nuns and monks would enter into single-sex relationships with their superiors to further their careers.

I was also witness to similar shenanigans, having been baptized in that odious church long ago, because my mother wanted me to be. My wealthier, enterprising relatives were regularly approached with business offers and schemes on how to avoid paying taxes by Russian Orthodox Officials.

The Russian term for protecting your business is krysha, and the church is an excellent source of protection, as long as clerics get their cut.

NONE of this is shocking if you’re Russian, have familiarity with Russia, or have worshipped at the Russian Orthodox Church. In fact, it’s considered old news. People just don’t talk about it much, because again, they don’t want to face ostracism or legal troubles.

In fact, back in the days when the Russian press still kind of functioned, they’d highlight stories such as crazed priests on Lexuses chasing people, to knowing smirks and shrugs. The Orthodox Church is not meant to function as a megachurch where the right priests get to swim in money, but the truth is much more pedestrian. In fact, the Russian Orthodox Church is just a more brutal, in-your-face hive of corruption.

The Russians’ goal is always to exploit insecure Westerners

My old colleague, Christo Grozev, whom the Russians want dead, has exposed much Russian spying and sabotage in recent years.

But spying and sabotage can are parts of a multi-pronged effort. Dismaying your enemy is equally important, and how do you dismay a young man? Just tell him that he’s not manly enough.

As we fight each other over wokeness and other trigger words, the Russians are exploiting a niche.

They are particularly active in Texas, and father John Whiteford, a local Orthodox leader, really doesn’t like it when the press goes digging into him and his followers. Of course, the fact that he is part of a church that’s run by an ex-KGB goon who has declared a “Holy War” doesn’t bother him.

Whiteford denies that he’s Putin’s stooge - but the truth is, you don’t need to be Putin’s stooge to do his bidding in sabotaging your own society. You can just be patriarch Kirill’s stooge instead.

You can never be manly if you bow down to rich Kirill and richer Putin

The Russian Orthodox activists in Texas and elsewhere can promote “manliness” all they want. Agrarianism, controlling your wife (everyone knows that a strong man needs a woman who bows down to him, hahahaha), hating on Taylor Swift - it’s all part of the package, and it’s all meant to make a guy feel more masculine.

But it’s just a mirage.

Being a minion of a wealthy businessman who cosplays as a spiritual leader for profit, which is what Kirill is, which is what all of his bulldogs are, is NOT manly. How can it be? Minions just do what they are told.

And what they are told to do, in Texas and beyond, is to make their own lives worse. Here are some relevant bits from the BBC article I cite above:

Translation: Reject the idea of a dual income household. Then, have kids you can’t necessarily afford. Be poorer. Hide your emotions. Be unhappier.

Again, I think manliness is great, and so is having kids. I see zero problem with a parent choosing to stay home with their kids too, if that’s what they want. But the Russian Orthodox version of masculinity is warped and extreme and it’s geared toward promoting poverty and misery, something Russians themselves are very used to, even while their clerics zip around in Lexuses and wage multi-million dollar lawsuits over multi-million dollar properties.

It’s hard to get by on a single income in Texas, IF you have a family. As much as I sympathize with the man quoted in the article, who says he had a hole in his heart, I must also note that his church is inspiring him toward a harsh financial situation. Look, it’s good to overcome harsh situations! But Russian Orthodox leadership itself lives lavishly. They just want their parish members to go without. They are playing their own people.

And they want to play Americans too.

Here’s a fun linguistic quirk: If you want to speak kindly of a person in Orthodox language, you say, “slave of God.” For example, “Pray for slave of God, Natalia, for she is a divorced woman who runs around with grenade launcher enthusiasts.”

I’ve always considered it a weird tradition. Clerics say that it should inspire humility. But “servant of God” or “child of God” is very different from “slave.”

Other churches reject the “slave” language, because it’s weird and sad. The Russian Orthodox church LOVES this language, because they are themselves weird and sad.

There are many spiritual arguments within the church, both modern and historic, for the use of this language, but I am genuinely uninterested in them. Theologians can argue what they want. What we see in practice, however, is a corrupt church dominated by a high-flying elite that wants to keep its own parishioners down.

Look, I understand that some guys might fall for this, or see wisdom and moral clarity in this, but I am here to tell the rest of you that it’s a scam.

Seeking a spiritual path is important for many of us. It’s important for me. When I was seeking it as a battered wife in my twenties, a Russian Orthodox priest told me sagely that, “You must be provoking your husband into hitting you.” If I can trace my history back to when I actually broke with this awful church, when a spiritual rupture occurred, it would be that moment. And from that moment on, my life started to become fuller and happier.

Today, I am in a position to help others. I make mistakes, and pay for them, but those mistakes are mine. I’m not under the thumb of a tyrannical man or his tyrannical institution of worship.

You can say I know quite a bit about male power now - both how it can be abused, and how it can be used for good (the aforementioned grenade launcher enthusiasts in my life are some of the best people I’ve met, exhibiting kind leadership and guidance, and you can’t tell me for a second that a man who knows how to shoot grenades isn’t manly).

So I can tell you honestly that wielders of true power do not abuse the weak. On the micro level and on the macro level, wielders of true power instead protect the vulnerable. This is not what the Russian Orthodox Church does, and its “holy war” on Ukraine is just one tragic example.

Remember, the glorious Normie Restoration is all about how we treat others, and also, how we treat ourselves.

Falling victim to the Kirill’s scam is not the way to have a better relationship with yourself.

In the immortal words of Eames from Inception, “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.”