A sewing workshop at one of the Russian Orthodox Church’s cathedral churches is producing camouflage uniforms for the Russian army, which is fighting against Ukraine. After being blessed, the clothing is sent to the front line.

This became known from a report published on the official website of the Petropavlovsk and Kamchatka Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The report states that “a new batch of camouflage uniforms for the defenders of the Fatherland has been delivered to the front.”

It is also reported that Archbishop Feodor of Petropavlovsk and Kamchatka “held a prayer service and sprinkled with holy water the camouflage uniforms recently sewn by the Sisters of Mercy of the Kamchatka Diocese.”

“The Sisters of Mercy place small icons and belts bearing Psalm 90 in the pockets of the uniforms,” the diocesan website writes.

Earlier, we reported that the head of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, praised the efforts of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow aimed at supporting participants in the “special military operation.”

According to LF, in November 2025 Patriarch Kirill Gundyayev stated that military heroism is “inseparable” from spiritual heroism and that participation in war may be regarded as a form of Christian service. This attempt to justify war through spiritual rhetoric provoked an immediate and sharp reaction within church circles.

According to Dr. Regina Elsner, a researcher of Eastern Christianity and ecumenism at the University of Münster, the Russian Orthodox Church has become one of the key institutions of mobilization and propaganda.

Read more about the lack of religious freedom and the instrumentalization of religion in totalitarian regimes, and about those who left Russia to escape repression, in LF’s feature article.