In his newest book, The Patriarch’s War: Kirill Gundiaev and the Forty-Year Battle for Ukraine, Griffin tells the story of modern Russian Orthodoxy through the rise of its most powerful and polarizing leader. It uncovers the deep religious origins of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and reveals how Patriarch Kirill has mobilized sacred memory to sanctify Putin’s holy war. Blending intellectual biography with political history, the book offers the first full account of how Kirill has taken the figures of Christ and Mary and fashioned from them the gods of war.

An article based on a chapter of the book—entitled ‘Revolution, Raskol, and Rock ‘n’ Roll: The 1020th Anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’—was awarded the Eve Levin Prize for the best article published in The Russian Review. A second article, ‘Putin’s Holy War of the Fatherland: Sacred Memory and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine’ was published in a special edition of The Russian Review.

Funding for the project has been awarded by the ACLS/Luce Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, and the Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki.