Luchenko, K: Blagimi namereniyami

In the early 1990s, priests of the Russian Orthodox Church urged Soviet and Russian soldiers not to commit fratricide - even if ordered to do so. Today, they promise eternal life to those who go to kill. How did this become possible? Why did the Church trade freedom for privilege? And why was political power so invested in that exchange? For over twenty-five years, Kseniya Luchenko has covered the Russian Orthodox Church as a journalist, witnessing key moments in its post-Soviet history. Her book is based on hundreds of documentary sources and dozens of exclusive interviews. Luchenko traces how and why the Russian Orthodox Church and its hierarchy arrived at a place where, as so often happens, the road paved with good intentions led them.