In July 2023, photographs of a Ukrainian book began to circulate on social networks, which allegedly said that killing Russians is not a sin. We decided to check if these reports are true.
The image that went viral is a composite of two images. In the first one, a woman’s hand holds a book called “War and the Bible” in Ukrainian. On the second there is a table of contents page, where one of the sections is called “Killing Russians is not a sin.” This picture was published by many Telegram channels, including “Ukraine.ru"(301,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Observer🇷🇺🇺🇦"(236,000), "Putin on Telegram"(195,000) and Voblya (167,000).
A book called "War and the Bible" actually exists: it released in 2022, the Ukrainian publishing house “Zhiva Vervitsa”, specializing on religious literature. You can buy this book in the Kovcheg online store, and there are also photographs of some pages.
After the chapter “Causes of a future war,” there is a chapter called “Who will win the future war,” and not “Killing Russians is not a sin.”
Thus, the content of the Ukrainian book in the viral photo and on the store’s website do not match. But to be sure, you should read this book in other languages.
“War and the Bible” is the work of a bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church Nicholas (Velimirović) (1880–1956), later canonized as St. Nicholas. He studied theology at the University of Bern and then received his PhD from Oxford. With the outbreak of the First World War, the future bishop returned to Serbia, provided assistance to the wounded and gave communion to the dying at the front. In 1934, Nikolai (Velimirović) became Bishop of Žiča. During the German occupation, the bishop was arrested and sent to the Dachau concentration camp; after World War II, he left for the United States.
War and the Bible (1932) is a book in which Bishop Nicholas reconsiders the experience of the First World War from a religious perspective. To understand that we are talking about the same book, you can read original text in Serbian. There, as in the Ukrainian translation, after the chapter “Causes of a future war" chapter follows "Who will win the future war"
There is a book by St. Nicholas of Serbia and in Russian. And in this translation, as in the others, the same sequence of chapters is preserved. The most interesting thing is that this is not the first time that this work has been used by Russian propagandists in the context of the war in Ukraine. In 2022, the general director of the Orthodox TV channel “Spas” Boris Korchevnikov and priest Igor Fomin presented their documentary about the war in Ukraine called “War and the Bible.” The announcement of the film indicated that Kochevnikov and Fomin “went to the Donbass to read this book and, with the help of St. Nicholas of Serbia, our military and residents of destroyed cities, find out answers to the main questions about what is happening to us today.”
Thus, the distributed photograph with a mention of the chapter “Killing Russians is not a sin” is a fake, and it is based on a book by a priest of the Orthodox Church, revered by staunch supporters of the war with Ukraine.
Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons
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