The Western trend of gender reassignment is a “sign of apocalypses,” Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, told Russian state news agency TASS in an interview broadcast on the state television Jan. 7, Orthodox Christmas.
Kirill did not mention Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, but claimed Russia, a “young and very strong civilization,” is fighting a “biblical battle” against the “sick West.”
Russia is superior to the West due to its “basic human morality” and “phenomenal” faithfulness, which is why Russia emerged victorious from both world wars, Kirill said.
“We emerged victorious from two world wars. … We have preserved our people. …”
The claim is false.
The Soviet Union played a pivotal role in the Allied victory in World War II (WWII), but Russia lost in World War I (WWI). Both wars were devastating for Russia.
As a result of WWI, Russia lost about 1 million square miles of territory, a third of its population (some 55 million lives), most of its coal, oil and iron reserves, and much of its industry. Communist dictator Vladimir Lenin, who carried out a peace agreement, described the settlement as “an abyss of defeat, dismemberment, enslavement, and humiliation.”
WWI, which raged from July 1914 to November 1918, involved more than 100 countries and spread across four continents, killing some 20 million people, wounding another 20 million and reshaping the world order.
The conflict stemmed from rivalries between two power blocs. The Entente (Great Britain, France, Russia) aimed to maintain dominance, while the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria) sought global leadership.
The Russian Empire implemented some military reforms during the decade that predated the WWI. Yet in 1914, the Russian army was ill-equipped for a major war.
Russian factories couldn’t produce enough arms and ammunition to equip its 1.4 million-strong army, the History channel wrote, citing a book by U.S. author Jamie H. Cockfield titled With Snow on Their Boots.
Some 800,000 Russian soldiers “didn’t even have rifles or had to do with nearly 40 years old obsolete weapons,” and many had to go into battle “unarmed until they could pick up a rifle from another soldier who had been killed or wounded,” Cockfield wrote.
By the end of 1914, the first year of war, Russia had lost over “one million men.”
Though peasant soldiers bore the brunt of casualties, the loss of officers weakened the army, making it unreliable in defending the monarchy by 1917.
Public dissatisfaction with the war grew as defeats mounted along the front. On March 8, 1917, strikes and Women’s Day celebrations in Petrograd — known today as St. Petersburg, then-Russia’s capital — sparked demonstrations with slogans like “Down with War!” Soldiers joined protesters, defying orders to fire, while police and gendarmes engaged in street fighting across the city.
On March 14, the State Duma established a provisional government. The following day, a delegation visited Nicholas II at his headquarters in Pskov, where it accepted an abdication on behalf of himself and his son.
On November 6-7, 1917, the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin seized key locations in Petrograd and established a new government, making Lenin dictator of the first communist state.
The Bolshevik government, unrecognized by the Entente, faced civil conflict and couldn’t fight on two fronts. On Dec. 3, 1917, they decided to initiate separate peace negotiations with Germany to end Russia’s involvement in WWI.
On March 3, 1918, the Bolshevik government accepted a treaty with the Central Powers signed at Brest-Litovsk, which is modern-day Belarus, concluding hostilities between those countries.
Under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia recognized the independence of Ukraine, Georgia, and Finland, while ceding Poland and the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) to Germany and Austria-Hungary, and territories such as Kars, Ardahan (then Armenia) and Batum (Georgia) to Turkey.
Russia’s “disastrous performance” in WWI contributed to the 1917 Revolution, followed by a Civil War between the “Reds” (Bolsheviks) and the “Whites” (anti-Bolshevik forces, including army officers, Cossacks and various political groups). By 1921, the Reds triumphed, gaining control over former Russian territories, except Finland, the Baltic States, Moldova, Poland and Western Ukraine. The war caused an estimated 7 million to 12 million casualties, mostly civilians.
Russia’s Orthodox Church remained politically neutral during the Civil War but faced harsh repression under the communist regime. Over 10,000 priests and church ministers and 28 bishops were killed. Churches and monasteries were closed, valuables confiscated, and clergy executed without trial.
