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For the Russian Orthodox Church, in which anti-Western sentiment runs high, recent prayer services for U.S. victims of September 11's terrorist attacks mark a shift towards a more sympathetic attitude to Americans. This change coincides with the increasingly pro-Western position of President Vladimir Putin.

At the same time, the Russian Orthodox Church, which has historically felt squeezed between Muslim and western Christian worlds, has trodden carefully between what has been seen as two sides of a conflict of civilizations.

With the musty scent of incense hanging in the air, Metropolitan Sergy, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate, conducted a recent memorial service "for all those in the American land killed suddenly and senselessly."

"With the saints rest the souls of thy servants, O Christ, where there is neither pain, nor grief, nor sigh, but life everlasting," sang the clergy and choir from verses of the Panikhida, an Orthodox requiem service, in Old Church Slavonic.

A similar service was held at St Catherine's church, which belongs to the Orthodox Church in America and which ministers to English-speaking Orthodox Christians in Moscow. Orthodox churches in the United States also held memorial services.

The services took place in keeping with the Orthodox tradition of commemorating the dead on the 40th day after death. According to this tradition, the soul of the dead finally leaves the earth on the 40th day and ascends to heaven or descends to hell, hence the call for special prayers on this day.

"Thousands of innocent people died because of the madness of those who want to reshape the world according to their design," Metropolitan Sergy said in his sermon. "They forgot that God did not give man free will for enmity and murder."

Since September 11, when the attacks in the U.S. generated a mass outpouring of grief among Russians, the Moscow Patriarchate has had to face difficult choices of policy. The church leadership expressed its condolences to the American people, and memorial services were held in many Moscow churches. On the other hand, some Orthodox publications argued that Russia should not side with either the western or Muslim world in the conflict, but rather seek a "third path."

In a series of public statements, the chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate's department of external relations, Metropolitan Kirill said that the United States had "moral and religious grounds" for a response to the terrorist attacks. But he warned of the dangers of a disproportionate response, which could cause the death of innocent people.

"If as a result of the response a new wave of confrontation begins in the world, the U.S. will be responsible for it," Kirill said in a televised interview. "But if the military strike is adequate, if justice is restored and those who committed this horrific crime are punished, military action will fit in the frame of a just war as it is defined by the Christian tradition."

The church's difficulty is in part explained by the fact that the Russian church has been one of the most vocal critics of what it considers to be U.S. "hegemony," globalization, and promotion of secular liberal values throughout the world. Anti-American sentiments ran particularly high in 1999, when NATO bombed Yugoslavia.

Kirill said that only a "multi-polar" world and coexistence of different civilizations could lead to peace in the 21st century.

"Of course, terrorist acts cannot be justified," he said. "Those who blew up buildings in New York and Washington have clearly demonstrated an intent to change the existing world order according to their beliefs."

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November (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45