Putin’s bogus Crimea-as-Temple-Mount analogy

Interfaith post

Mark Silk

his annual Address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow yesterday, Russian president Vladimir Putin justified his takeover of Crimea on religious grounds. This was, he said, the baptismal place of Prince Vladimir, the ruler who brought about the conversion of the Russian people:

Christianity was a powerful spiritual unifying force that helped involve various tribes and tribal unions of the vast Eastern Slavic world in the creation of a Russian nation and Russian state. It was thanks to this spiritual unity that our forefathers for the first time and forevermore saw themselves as a united nation. All of this allows us to say that Crimea, the ancient Korsun or Chersonesus, and Sevastopol have invaluable civilisational and even sacral importance for Russia, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the followers of Islam and Judaism.

Nor was this the first time that Putin has referred to Crimea in such terms. In a meeting with Russian historians last month he called it “a sacred space,” declaring, “In Crimea in Chersonesus Prince Vladimir was baptized, and then he converted Russia. The original baptismal font of Russia is there.”

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