This piece is an attempt to comprehend the profound nature of the silence of Russian Christians in 2014, 2022, and onward – a silence that has become the position of churches and theological educational institutions in Russia. This silence multiplies spiritual emptiness with each passing day of the ongoing full-scale unprovoked Russian war against Ukraine.

Preamble

In times of war, the phenomenon of silence acquires an exceptional depth that goes far beyond the mere absence of words. The choice of silence becomes a spiritual barometer, revealing our attitude toward truth. Such silence comes in two fundamentally different forms: first, silence as an act of preserving divine truth and second, silence as a refusal to bear witness to the truth. In the same way that physical silence can be the reverent stillness of a temple or the deathly quiet of a cemetery, these two types of spiritual silence may appear similar, but they are actually radically opposite. 

The first type of silence witnesses to divine truth, not out of fear but in reverence for God. It is a refusal to speak untruth; therefore, such silence becomes, in fact, a proclamation of truth. In wartime, this silence often requires more courage than does the act of speech, as it means resisting distortions of reality by refusing to participate in them. 

The second type of silence is a refusal to bear witness to the truth. It begins as a seemingly insignificant compromise for safety but gradually grows into a profound betrayal of one’s humanity and Christian calling. Such silence is not merely the personal choice of one believer; it is a form of complicity in the triumph of evil through refusing to resist evil.

In the context of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the difference between the two types of silence manifests with particular acuteness. The price of choosing one or the other becomes a matter of life and death, both physical and spiritual. Each choice to remain silent becomes either an act of preserving divine truth and human dignity in the face of unprovoked violence, robbery, rape, and destruction, or a step towards losing one’s moral essence under cover of upholding the Russian state’s claim to be “defending traditional Christian values.”

Understanding the biblical paradigm of these two types of silence is not just a theoretical exercise. It is an important spiritual and ecclesiological tool, especially for church structures, and for navigating moral challenges such as Russia’s war against Ukraine. Understanding these two kinds of silence helps us recognize the true nature of our silences and their consequences, not only for us personally but also for the Church and for innocent victims. Let us consider some examples from biblical stories.

The First Silence

In the Old Testament, Job’s silence reveals the need for stillness in which to comprehend the depth of  suffering. As Job waited seven days before he spoke, he demonstrated not only the extremity of his grief but also how necessary time is to the process of forming a language capable of clothing the unspeakable in words. Amid his physical and mental sufferings, Job needed time to find words worthy of the reality of his pain. Job understood when it was necessary to remain silent and when it was necessary to speak – just as the rhythm of breathing alternates the filling and emptying of inhale and exhale. 

Daniel’s silence is slightly different. Rather than showing the depths of suffering, Daniel’s silence reveals obedience to divine truth at a time when the imperial apparatus demanded a renunciation of obedience to God. When the emperor required that no one pray to any deity but himself, Daniel chose silent fidelity to God alone without loud protests. His quiet prayer three times a day by an open window spoke louder than any public declarations. He bore witness to God’s truth through his faithfulness to daily practices, even when it threatened his life. Daniel’s silence resisted imperial human power by obeying divine power, by taking the divine command alone as the basis for action.

The silence of the three youths in the fiery furnace demonstrates another facet of this kind of silence: the refusal of dialogue or compromise with a system of violence. Before they were thrown into the furnace, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not enter into debates about the nature of idolatry, nor did they try to justify themselves, nor did they try to persuade others. They simply said, “Our God can save us… but even if He does not….” Their quiet entry into the furnace reveals that sometimes any explanation before the evil empire is a compromise with untruth. 

Similarly, in the New Testament, Christ’s silence before Pilate reveals to us silence as a witness to divine truth. Christ’s silence during his trial implicitly condemned as lies the language of untruth used by the chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, Pilate, and Herod. His silence exposed all the spiritual emptiness of power that tried to force truth to speak its language of falsehood, slander, and hatred. His single, brief answer about the nature of truth only underscores the absurdity of attempting to judge truth by a human court. By refusing to participate in his unjust trial, Christ refused to legitimize it and demonstrated its falsehoods.

This form of silence protects truth by refusing to speak the language of untruth. It is an act of resistance to evil by refusing to enter into dialogue with it. Today, for Christians under the shadow of the full-scale Russian war, this silence manifests in the refusal to speak the language of Russian propaganda, even under pressure. It refuses to participate in false “dialogues about peace” that call Ukrainians to forget and legitimize Russian aggression and cultural and theological imperialism. This silence refuses to simplify the tragedy of the suffering of the inhabitants of Ukraine to the level of everyday inconveniences. It refuses to justify its inaction by repeating empty lines about the “complexity of the situation” (as many Slavic pastors in the USA, have done).

This silence is an active resistance to the distortion of reality. By its refusal to speak the language of untruth, it bears witness to truth. Such silence is not passivity but the highest form of activity, as our spirit refuses to submit to the language of violence – right now, for example, in Russian propaganda. Such silence recognizes and bears witness to the reality of unimaginable suffering and to the truth of God’s complete authority and faithfulness. 

The Second Silence

The second silence is the silence of those who see crimes but refuse to testify, who know the truth but choose “neutrality” and want to remain “outside of politics.” This silence is complicity in evil through a refusal to bear witness to the truth.

For instance, the silence of Christ’s disciples during His arrest is the silence of fear when fear is allowed to overcome knowledge of the truth. The disciples, who had recently sworn allegiance to Jesus unto death, suddenly fell silent and fled. Fear paralyzed their mouths and their consciences so that they did not confront the authorities’ lies. Similarly, many Russian pastors and theological educators today refuse to call aggression by its name. Their silent betrayal of their fellow believers in Ukraine masquerades silence as prudence. Phrases like “It’s not the time to talk about this,” “We need to be careful,” or “We shouldn’t exacerbate the situation” become a moral smokescreen behind which hides a refusal to bear witness to the truth. Thus, fear forces them to hide behind euphemisms, as they call the Russian war a “situation” or a “conflict,” or they say that “everything is not so clear-cut.” They avoid admitting the truth because it would require them to step into danger. 

Later in the crucifixion narrative, Caiaphas’s silence before Pilate is the silence of conscious self-interest. Unlike the disciples, Caiaphas was not moved by the sudden adrenaline of astonished fear. Rather, Caiaphas knew the truth about Christ’s innocence but remained silent for the sake of preserving his position in the religious-political system. Caiaphas’s silence is a prototype of today’s silence among Russian churches when leaders, who are called to bear witness to God’s truth, nevertheless choose silence for the sake of preserving their individual or organizational status or certain “informal” privileges. This diplomatic silence is a conscious refusal to call evil by its name out of fear of losing security guarantees, influence, or connections. So the church acts with an institutional passivity under the cover of “neutrality,” which is justified by “powerlessness before evil.”

Next, the silence with which Pilate surrounds his question “What is truth?” demonstrates the silence of relativism. This silence is a philosophical self-justification that uses the purported complexity of the situation as a pretext for moral passivity. Even so, today, some Russian Christian leaders compose long pseudo-intellectual reflections on “impartiality,” on the “complexity and ambiguity” of the “situation,” and on the “different perspectives.” They will not make a clear moral judgment about good and evil, though the contrast between the two in Ukraine is quite clear. They practice a moral relativism that refuses to distinguish between the aggressor and the victim.

Finally, the silence of the crowd that did not intercede for the innocent Christ but that shouted “Crucify!” is the silence of collective responsibility and irresponsibility at the same time. Perhaps individuals in the crowd sympathized with Christ, but together, as a whole, they remained silent at the moment of moral choice. The community refused to bear witness to the truth. In the context of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, this kind of silence manifests itself through the refusal to call Russian crimes by their proper names under the pretext of “impartiality” and through the concealment of the truth about violence under the guise of “maintaining calm.”

These silences of betrayal lead to moral and missional trauma. The Russian Church has wounded its own faith and self-respect and is creating an even more profound moral trauma for Russian society. This silence is complicity in the existential evil of a genocidal war, not only through the refusal to resist it actively but also through words motivated by fear and self-interest, by tacit consent that distorts the truth and that allows evil to present itself as a moral norm. Such sinful silence becomes a chronic state of the soul. Because it has rejected the purpose of action and speech as bearing witness to the truth (the only valid answer to “Why?”), it cannot answer the question “When?” and therefore endlessly degrades those who choose it.

Thus, this second type of silence results in a process of gradual moral disarmament. For Russian Christians, this silence first manifests as a refusal to speak about the truth for the sake of fear, then for the sake of personal and institutional pragmatism, and then for the sake of the “complexity of the situation.” In the end, the Christian community can no longer distinguish between good and evil. Conformism becomes not just an external behavior but an internally desired, safe state of the soul. 

So What?

The Bible speaks of “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Ecclesiastes 3:7). Our wisdom lies in discerning these times: When does silence protect truth from profanation, or when does silence hide truth from the world? The first silence is born of spiritual strength and leads to the transformation of the Church; the second is born of spiritual weakness and leads to the disintegration of our personality and community and to spiritual death. But how can we distinguish these types of silence? 

Above all, it is important to discern their source. The first silence is born from an encounter with God and an awareness of His mission. It is filled with an inner cry to God, like the “mute cry” of the prophet Jonah from the belly of the whale. This recognition of God controls our fear and desire for security. It is the silence of the temple, filled with the holy presence of God, as in the stories of Job, Daniel, the three youths, and many other heroes. The fruit of such silence is inner personal and outer communal transformation manifested in the powerful decision to bear witness to the truth. Like a seed, such silence sprouts new life and forms a space for the maturation of our spiritual strength. 

The second silence occurs as the individual or the community is motivated by fear, a desire for security, conformism, a desire for power, and indifference. Such silence leads to the disintegration of the personality and community because it is a betrayal of the human essence in the eyes of God. This silence is a “black hole” that gradually absorbs the light of moral consciousness. Its process can be compared to the gradual loss of vision in the dark: At first, a person stops distinguishing shades, then colors, and finally differences between light and darkness. In the same way, the silence of betrayal first dulls moral sensitivity, then blurs the boundaries between good and evil, and finally leads to complete moral blindness. It leads to the loss of participation in the mission of God and to spiritual death.

Christ’s call, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” establishes an inextricable link between the perception of truth and responsibility for it. When a person hears and accepts the truth, they become a witness to it. Like one who has witnessed a crime, they can no longer pretend they have not seen anything. During the Russian aggression against Ukraine, Russian ministers must decide: Are they ready to testify to the crimes of their leaders and army as a testimony to God’s truth? Or will they seek agreements with totalitarian authorities that promise temporary security in exchange for silence? Will they adopt a “neutral” and “impartial” position for the sake of their individual and institutional comfort?

Each act of silence, whether as a witness or a betrayal, is part of our larger spiritual struggle. Just as each cell of our immune system defends our entire organism, our individual decision to remain silent or speak influences the spiritual state of our country’s Church and society. Christ reminds us, “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Matthew 12:30). In times of full-scale war, moral neutrality is impossible. The silence of Russian Christians – and, indeed, the silence of some Western and Ukrainian Christians about specific aspects of this war – is a refusal to bear witness to the truth. It is not just passivity but active complicity in untruth’s victory.

Silence can be a form of resistance, like the silence of a martyr under interrogation, or a form of collaboration, like the silence of a witness to a crime. Is it possible to preserve oneself by refusing to bear witness to the truth? Does not such a refusal become a form of slow spiritual suicide? These questions are not just an exercise in moral reflection. In the context of war, the price of silence is a matter of life and death, for which both the Church in Russia and the Church in the West and Ukraine are responsible.

Today, Russian, Ukrainian, and global churches face the challenge of silence. For the Russian Church, it is the silence of complicity in a genocidal war, where each day of silence multiplies the number of victims and legitimizes evil. For the Ukrainian Church, it is the temptation to keep silent about internal problems and moral compromises under cover of wartime when patriotic rhetoric becomes a convenient veil for avoiding painful questions of inner purification and renewal. 

And what about the global Church? In the context of armed conflicts worldwide, does not the church too often remain silent, avoiding uncomfortable truths about its responsibility and the need for repentance and concrete action for peace and justice?

Every person or church has a unique “list of silence” – topics that cause discomfort and are easier to avoid. However, God calls us to radical openness before Him and ourselves. The price of the second silence is always higher than it seems: It is measured not only by the loss of public trust in the Church today but also, more importantly, by the loss of the possibility of authentic witness to Christ for future generations. When the Church is silent about the truth for institutional or organizational comfort, it betrays not just its mission but Christ Himself.