With the invasion of Ukraine by Putin we see, once again, how religion (in this case the Christian religion) is used or hijacked to justify imperial conquest, war and bloodshed. Putin claims to be a practising Russian Orthodox Christian and his invasion of Ukraine is, for him, a crusade to reclaim sacred and God-given territory.

In the Christian era, this hijacking of religion all began when Constantine, the Roman emperor, with the support of the Church, made Christianity the established religion of the empire in that fateful year 313. From that time onwards the message of love, peace and non-violence and the world of the Beatitudes, as proclaimed and lived by Jesus and his early followers, has been subverted and betrayed by leaders like Putin, even by some church leaders.