Why Russia is sending dead princes and saints into battle

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As Russian troops on the front lines of eastern Ukraine are digging in for another winter, they are receiving an unusual form of support: the remains of a warrior prince who fought for Moscow more than six centuries ago.

A fragment of the remains of Dmitry Donskoy, a prince celebrated in Russia for his victory at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, was sent to the front lines in early September and is now being sent around military bases in Russian-occupied Ukraine.

The military department of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Orthodox Church’s clerical leadership, said the “saint commander” would invisibly stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Russian soldiers. The church added that the relic, a fragment of his right hand, was the same hand with which he wielded his sword at Kulikovo.

Sending a religious relic into battle may seem peculiar but since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has sought to use every avenue in what has become a grinding and bloody war of attrition, including invoking religious symbolism to portray its cause as “righteous” and divinely sanctioned. As a result, the relationship between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church has grown closer than ever.

“The church has practically merged with the state to the point of being indistinguishable,” said Sergei Chapnin, a religious scholar and director of communications at Fordham University’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center.

“From my point of view, the maximum (closeness) has been reached.”

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Dispatching sacred relics to troops is a longstanding practice in Orthodox Christianity.

“This combination of the sacred and the material attracts attention,” said Chapnin, who used to work in the publishing house of the Moscow Patriarchate. “Of course, propaganda uses this.”

The remains of Donskoy also carry a contemporary message, experts say.

“He was not himself an aggressor, but a defender of the fatherland,” the scholar told CNN. From the government’s perspective, “it is very important to show that Russia is not the aggressor, that we are defending our territory.”

Chapnin called it “a mobilizing myth.”

“These myths, which connect different times and eras, can act quite powerfully on mass consciousness,” he said, adding that the relics are presented as “a magical artifact.”

Metropolitan Vladimir, the Russian-installed Orthodox leader in Donetsk and Mariupol, said the relic would help soldiers and civilians “mobilize both their spiritual and physical strength” and “triumph over the enemy.”

Donskoy is not the first warrior saint Russia has invoked during its war in Ukraine. Relics of Prince Alexander Nevsky, another medieval ruler-turned-symbol of Russian military glory, were also taken to troops earlier this year.

The timing of sending Donskoy’s remains into battle was also handy. The prince’s remains were uncovered during restoration work at the Kremlin’s Archangel Cathedral in August, weeks after unverified reports that the Nevsky relics had been lost.

Sergey Bobylev/Sputnik/AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the recovery of the remains – whose location had been known since their burial – an “absolutely unique” and “marvelous discovery.” The pro-Kremlin leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, described it as “a special sign of God’s providence.

But for the Rev. Alexander Zanemonets, an Orthodox priest and historian born in Moscow who lived abroad for years before leaving Russia permanently after its invasion of Ukraine, the discovery “has nothing to do with Christianity.”

“It is undoubtedly the exploitation of Christianity and the exploitation of the church for ‘patriotic’ purposes.” In a church with relatively few active worshippers but strong state backing, incentives tend to align with the state, he said, calling the use of the remains a “cynical calculation.”

From 2022 to 2024, Zanemonets ministered to Ukrainian war refugees in the Orthodox Church of Finland. His service ended amid questions about his Ukrainian-language proficiency and ties to Russia, allegations he rejected in a Facebook post.

While it may appear cynical to some, many of those at the front have found themselves turning to God.

“Not all of us talk to God when things are going well, but everyone talks to God when things are bad,” one former Russian serviceman who previously fought in Ukraine told CNN.

Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images

He described makeshift churches built from whatever was available, soldiers praying before every mission and priests regularly visiting military units and hospitals.

“Like a field kitchen, there should be a priest everywhere,” he said, quoting a popular Russian expression: “We are Russians. God is with us.”

A Russian soldier currently serving in the Zaporizhzhia region also described the opportunity to speak to a priest, pray or touch a holy object as “serious moral support.”

As the war drags into its fifth year with no end in sight, the troops say the strain is growing. “The situation is tense overall and is only getting worse as the time goes on,” a Russian commander in Donbas told CNN.

The soldiers discussed their faith at the front on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Away from the front lines, the Russian Orthodox Church’s religious reach appears far more limited than its demonstrated political influence. A 2026 telephone survey by the state-run pollster VСIOM found about two-thirds of Russians identify as Orthodox Christians, down from roughly 80% 15 years ago.

But several priests and religious scholars told CNN that only about 2% of baptized Orthodox believers in Russia regularly practice their faith, a figure supported by Russian Interior Ministry data on attendance at Orthodox Christmas services.

Yet an annual religious procession promoted by far-right and nationalist groups in four Russian cities drew huge crowds in September, with more than 100,000 participants in Moscow alone, according to official figures. In the capital, worshippers carried a fragment of Donskoy’s relics through the streets in a procession led by Kirill.

According to Zanemonets, who now works at the Orthodox Church in America, such events primarily serve to demonstrate to the state how the church “can organize large numbers of people.”

Still, religious scholar and historian Konstantin Mikhailov called the turnout “a drop in the ocean” in a country of more than 145 million people, arguing that Russian society, contrary to the wishes of the state and the church, remains very secular.

To help expand its own influence, the church receives money and political backing from the Kremlin, while the Kremlin gains legitimacy because the church supports state narratives, Mikhailov argued, calling it a “mutually reinforcing” cycle.

The historian also said the cycle has fueled the growth of military chaplains on the front lines. For critics inside the church, however, that raises a difficult question about the kind of assistance priests should offer soldiers.

“We need to support people, including those in military uniform,” said the Rev. Grigory Mikhnov-Vaytenko, a Russian priest of the Apostolic Orthodox Church who helps Ukrainian refugees displaced by the war . “But the question is how we support them.”

“On the one hand, (you must) not deny people spiritual help, and on the other, not lead them into an illusion,” the priest told CNN.

The Russian Orthodox Church has taken a different view. Just days after Putin announced a partial mobilization in September 2022, Patriarch Kirill told worshippers that a soldier who dies while carrying out his military duty has made a sacrifice that “washes away all the sins.”

Ukraine has painstakingly sought to break away from the Russian Orthodox Church, formally splitting from it in 2019. Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the head of the global Orthodox church, recognized the establishment of an independent Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

Mikhnov-Vaytenko noted that Orthodox Christians make up a majority of the population in both Russia and Ukraine. The priest, who left the Russian Orthodox Church after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, said the church as an institution “blesses its children to kill one another.”

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Fordham University’s Chapnin called it a departure from how martyrdom has been understood in the Orthodox tradition for thousands of years. “The Gospel has a subordinate significance in relation to the tasks of state propaganda,” he said.

Meanwhile on the front lines, not every soldier who CNN spoke to saw the relics as meaningful support. One serviceman in the Donbas region, in occupied eastern Ukraine, called it “a very unconventional solution to our problems in the 21st century.”

“My view is that they are needed more by the mothers of the guys who died in this military operation,” he added.

维亚切斯拉夫·普罗科菲耶夫/法新社/Pool/Getty Images

在乌克兰东部前线，俄罗斯军队正准备迎接又一个冬天，他们得到了一种不同寻常的支持：一位六个多世纪前为莫斯科而战的武士王子的遗骸。

1380 年在库利科沃战役中取得胜利的俄罗斯王子德米特里·顿斯科伊的遗骸碎片于 9 月初被送往前线，现在正在俄罗斯占领的乌克兰各军事基地之间传递。

俄罗斯东正教莫斯科宗主教区军事部门（即俄罗斯东正教的宗教领袖）表示，这位“圣统帅”将以隐形的方式与俄罗斯士兵“并肩作战”。教会还补充说，这件圣物是他右手的一块碎片，正是他在库利科沃战役中挥剑的那只手。

将宗教圣物送上战场或许看似怪异，但自俄罗斯2022年全面入侵乌克兰以来，莫斯科便竭尽所能，在这场旷日持久、血腥残酷的消耗战中，利用一切手段，包括援引宗教象征意义，将其事业描绘成“正义的”和神圣的。结果，克里姆林宫与俄罗斯东正教会的关系比以往任何时候都更加密切。

“教会实际上已经与国家融合到无法区分的地步，”福特汉姆大学东正教研究中心宗教学者兼传播主任谢尔盖·查普宁说。

“在我看来，（亲密程度）已经达到极限了。”

亚历山大·泽姆利亚尼琴科/美联社

向军队派遣圣物是东正教由来已久的习俗。

“这种神圣与物质的结合很能吸引眼球，”曾在莫斯科宗主教区出版社工作的查普宁说，“当然，宣传也会利用这一点。”

专家表示，顿斯科伊的遗骸也传递着当代信息。

这位学者告诉CNN：“他本人并非侵略者，而是祖国的捍卫者。” 从政府的角度来看，“表明俄罗斯不是侵略者，我们是在保卫我们的领土，这一点非常重要。”

查普宁称之为“一种动员神话”。

“这些连接不同时代和时期的神话可以对大众意识产生相当大的影响，”他说，并补充说，这些遗物被呈现为“神奇的文物”。

俄罗斯在顿涅茨克和马里乌波尔任命的东正教领袖弗拉基米尔都主教表示，这件圣物将帮助士兵和平民“调动他们的精神和身体力量”，并“战胜敌人”。

顿斯科伊并非俄罗斯在乌克兰战争期间援引的第一位圣武士。今年早些时候，另一位中世纪统治者、俄罗斯军事荣耀的象征——亚历山大·涅夫斯基大公的遗物也被带给了部队。

将顿斯科伊王子的遗骸送往战场的时机也恰到好处。这位王子的遗骸是在8月份克里姆林宫天使长大教堂的修复工作中被发现的，而就在几周前，曾有未经证实的报道称涅瓦斯基遗物已经遗失。

谢尔盖·博比列夫/卫星通讯社/美联社

俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京称，这些遗骸的发现——其埋葬地点自埋葬以来就已为人所知——是一项“绝对独特”且“惊人的发现”。亲克里姆林宫的俄罗斯东正教领袖基里尔大牧首将其描述为“上帝眷顾的特殊标志”。

但对于出生于莫斯科的东正教牧师兼历史学家亚历山大·扎内莫涅茨神父来说，这一发现“与基督教无关”。扎内莫涅茨神父在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后永久离开俄罗斯，此前他曾在国外生活多年。

“这无疑是对基督教和教会的利用，以达到所谓的‘爱国’目的。” 他说，在一个信徒相对较少但有强大国家支持的教会里，其利益往往与国家利益保持一致，并称利用遗骸是一种“玩世不恭的算计”。

2022年至2024年，扎内莫内茨在芬兰东正教教会为乌克兰战争难民提供服务。他的服务因对其乌克兰语水平以及与俄罗斯的关系的质疑而结束，他在Facebook上发帖否认了这些指控。

虽然有些人可能觉得这很愤世嫉俗，但许多冲锋在前的人最终都转向了上帝。

一位曾在乌克兰作战的俄罗斯前军人告诉 CNN：“并非所有人都会在顺境时向上帝祈祷，但当事情变得糟糕时，每个人都会向上帝祈祷。”

奥尔加·马尔采娃/法新社/盖蒂图片社

他描述了用一切可用的东西搭建的临时教堂，士兵们在每次传教前祈祷，以及牧师们定期探访军事单位和医院。

“就像野战厨房一样，到处都应该有一位牧师，”他引用一句流行的俄罗斯谚语说道：“我们是俄罗斯人，上帝与我们同在。”

一名目前在扎波罗热地区服役的俄罗斯士兵也表示，有机会与神父交谈、祈祷或触摸圣物是“重要的精神支持”。

这场战争已持续五年，仍看不到尽头，士兵们表示压力与日俱增。“总体局势紧张，而且随着时间的推移只会越来越糟，”一名驻顿巴斯的俄罗斯指挥官告诉CNN。

这些士兵在前线匿名谈论他们的信仰，因为他们没有被授权接受媒体采访。

在远离前线的地区，俄罗斯东正教的宗教影响力似乎远不及它所展现出的政治影响力。俄罗斯国家民调机构 VCIOM 在 2026 年进行的一项电话调查发现，约有三分之二的俄罗斯人自认为是东正教徒，这一比例低于 15 年前的约 80%。

但几位神父和宗教学者告诉 CNN，俄罗斯只有约 2% 的受洗东正教信徒经常进行宗教活动，俄罗斯内政部关于东正教圣诞节礼拜出席人数的数据也支持这一数字。

然而，由极右翼和民族主义团体在俄罗斯四个城市发起的年度宗教游行在9月份吸引了大量人群，据官方统计，仅莫斯科一地就有超过10万人参加。在首都，信徒们抬着顿斯科伊遗物的碎片，在基里尔的带领下穿过街道。

现就职于美国东正教教会的扎内莫内茨表示，此类活动的主要目的是向国家展示教会“如何组织大量民众”。

不过，宗教学者兼历史学家康斯坦丁·米哈伊洛夫称，在一个拥有超过 1.45 亿人口的国家，投票率“只是沧海一粟”，他认为，尽管国家和教会希望如此，俄罗斯社会仍然非常世俗化。

米哈伊洛夫认为，为了扩大自身的影响力，教会从克里姆林宫获得资金和政治支持，而克里姆林宫则因为教会支持国家叙事而获得合法性，他称之为“相互加强”的循环。

这位历史学家还指出，这种循环推动了前线随军牧师数量的增长。然而，对于教会内部的批评人士来说，这引发了一个棘手的问题：神父应该向士兵提供何种帮助？

“我们需要支持所有人，包括那些身穿军装的人，”帮助因战争流离失所的乌克兰难民的俄罗斯东正教牧师格里戈里·米赫诺夫-瓦伊滕科说，“但问题是我们如何支持他们。”

“一方面，（你）不能拒绝人们获得精神上的帮助；另一方面，也不能让他们陷入幻想，”这位牧师告诉 CNN。

俄罗斯东正教教会则持不同观点。就在普京宣布将于2022年9月进行部分动员的几天后，基里尔宗主教告诉信徒，一名在履行军事职责时牺牲的士兵做出了“可以洗净所有罪孽”的牺牲。

乌克兰一直努力脱离俄罗斯东正教，并于 2019 年正式脱离。全球东正教领袖君士坦丁堡的巴尔多禄茂一世承认乌克兰独立东正教的成立。

米赫诺夫-瓦伊滕科指出，东正教徒在俄罗斯和乌克兰都占人口的大多数。这位在2014年莫斯科吞并克里米亚后离开俄罗斯东正教的神父表示，教会作为一个机构“实际上是在鼓励它的信徒互相残杀”。

路金波/新华社/盖蒂图片社

特朗普正向普京的盟友寻求帮助，以帮助美国农民。但这其中却隐藏着一个巨大的陷阱。

福特汉姆大学的查普宁称，这与东正教数千年来对殉道的理解截然不同。他说：“福音在国家宣传任务中处于从属地位。”

与此同时，在前线，并非所有接受CNN采访的士兵都认为这些遗物是有意义的支持。一名驻扎在被占领的乌克兰东部顿巴斯地区的士兵称之为“解决我们21世纪问题的非常规方案”。

“我认为，在这次军事行动中牺牲的士兵的母亲们更需要这些，”他补充道。