By continuing to use this site, you agree to the use of cookies in accordance with our privacy policy.

Site homepage

Social Science and Public Policy

Putin’s Holy War: Sacred Memory and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

March 31, 2025 at 4:00pm – 5:00pm

Eggers Hall, 341

The Moynihan Institute’s Center for European Studies, partnering with the LLL Russian Department, present Sean Griffin from the University of Norte Dame.

In this talk, Griffin presents a chapter from his latest book, “Putin’s Holy War: Sacred Memory and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine,” forthcoming from Cornell University Press. In this book, Griffin traces the career of Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev), the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, and examines his highly controversial role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s Holy War explores the myths that governments construct to justify violence and sacralize the mass murder of human beings.

Sean Griffin, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

His research focuses on the history of the Orthodox Church and its role in the sacralization of political power—from the liturgy and chronicles of medieval Kyiv to the arthouse cinema and wartime propaganda of Putin’s Russia. Griffin’s first book, “The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus,” was published by Cambridge University Press and won two international book awards: the W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize and the Ecclesiastical History Society Book Prize.

This event was published on March 14, 2025.

Event Details