With the November’s decision of the Council of Ecumenical Patriarchate to grant autocephaly to Ukrainian Orthodox church, Russian media went through a phase of hysteria. As new topics emerged (which often were also concerned with Ukrainian politics, not Russian), Russian propagandists seemed to have agreed that tomos was doomed for failure. However, the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and especially the granting of autocephaly on January 5th required a flexible reaction from the propagandists. First, they had to replace their failed forecasts with new explanations of the events surrounding the tomos. Secondly, Russian propaganda had to convince their audience that a church without tomos (like Russian Orthodox church) is, in fact, better than the church that has it. Thirdly, they had to distract the audience from the actual meaning of the events using any additional detail they could find: a fainted priest, Poroshenko’s chocolate, and even the Ukrainian first lady’s chest.
Russia's War Against Ukraine
StopFake: Russian propaganda reacts to tomos
A handout picture distributed by the Moscow Patriarchate press service shows Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill holding a church service Minsk on Oct. 14, 2018.
