Originally published 2021-07-07.
In early July 2021, one of the most senior figures in the Russian Orthodox Church said on national television that refusing a COVID-19 vaccine was a sin. Metropolitan Hilarion, then head of the church's Department for External Church Relations, told the Rossiya-24 news channel that people who turned down vaccination were putting themselves ahead of others, and that some were now coming to confession burdened by guilt.
His remarks were a personal moral argument from a church leader, not a formal doctrine or a medical finding. But they mattered, because they came from the church's chief diplomat at a moment when Russia was struggling with very low vaccine uptake and a fierce third wave of the pandemic.
What Hilarion actually said
According to the Greek City Times report of 6 July 2021, Hilarion said parishioners regularly came to him to repent for not having been vaccinated. They asked him how they were supposed to live with what had happened, and he admitted he found that question hard to answer. He told viewers that such a person would spend a lifetime atoning for it.
He was careful to explain what he meant by sin. "The sin is thinking about yourself instead of thinking about other people," he said. In his view, every person carries responsibility not only for themselves and their family, but for everyone they meet and could infect.
Hilarion also backed the government's plans to make vaccination compulsory for workers in the service sector. He accepted that vaccination had been meant to be voluntary from the start, but argued that it had to be weighed against "the principle of people's responsibility for the lives of other people."
Who Metropolitan Hilarion is
Hilarion, born Grigory Alfeyev in Moscow in 1966, is a theologian, church historian and composer as well as a bishop. Before taking his senior post he served as Bishop of Vienna and Austria from 2003 to 2009, and he is known abroad for choral works such as his St Matthew Passion and Christmas Oratorio, which have been performed in Moscow, Rome, Melbourne and the United States.
From 2009 to 2022 he was Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, effectively the Moscow Patriarchate's foreign minister. In that role he was also a permanent member of the Holy Synod, the church's governing body, and one of the most visible church voices on Russian television.
Russia's vaccine campaign in mid-2021
Russia had been first in the world to register a COVID-19 vaccine. Sputnik V received conditional approval in August 2020, before large trials were complete, and mass vaccination began in December 2020 with doctors and teachers, opening to the general public in January 2021.
Yet many Russians were reluctant. A Levada Center poll in March 2021 found that 62% of respondents did not want the Sputnik V vaccine. Hesitancy was highest among the young: in May, three-quarters of 18 to 24-year-olds said they were not ready to be vaccinated.
By June, as infections climbed again, the authorities changed tack. Moscow ordered service-sector businesses to ensure that at least 60% of their staff had a first dose by mid-July, and by early July compulsory vaccination for certain groups had been introduced in 24 Russian regions. It was this kind of measure that Hilarion was supporting. Even so, uptake stayed relatively low: by June 2022 only about 56% of the population had received at least one dose.
Where the wider church stood
Hilarion's language was stronger than most, but his basic position matched the church leadership's. Patriarch Kirill received a Russian-made vaccine in the spring of 2021, and a church spokesman said many priests and bishops were also getting vaccinated.
At the same time, the Patriarch stressed that the church should not exclude anyone. In December 2021 he told Moscow clergy that vaccination was a personal medical decision and that the church must never become a place segregated by vaccination status. That balance, encouraging vaccination while keeping churches open to the unvaccinated, reflected tensions inside the church, where some clergy and lay believers were openly sceptical of vaccines and of state mandates.
Faith, conscience and public health
Hilarion's argument draws on a familiar Christian idea: love of neighbour. Many religious leaders around the world, from Pope Francis to Orthodox patriarchs in Greece and elsewhere, used similar reasoning during the pandemic, describing vaccination as an act of care for the vulnerable.
Calling refusal a "sin", however, was controversial. Some critics argued that it mixed spiritual authority with state policy at a time when the Russian church was already seen as closely aligned with the government. Supporters replied that he was simply naming the moral weight of choices that affect other people.
Two common misunderstandings are worth clearing up. First, Hilarion's words did not change church law or make vaccination a condition for receiving the sacraments. Second, the fact that a senior cleric supported vaccination does not by itself say anything about how well a particular vaccine works; that is a question for clinical trials and health agencies. Anyone unsure about a vaccine for themselves should talk to a doctor.
What happened to Hilarion later
Less than a year after these comments, Hilarion's career changed sharply. On 7 June 2022 the Holy Synod removed him as head of external church relations and sent him to lead the diocese of Budapest and Hungary. Western media speculated that he was moved under government pressure because he would not openly back the war in Ukraine; in March 2022 he had called for prayer for an end to the fighting.
In July 2024 the Synod suspended him while it examined allegations of misconduct made by a former assistant, which he denied, calling them an extortion attempt. He was formally retired from the Budapest post at the end of December 2024. His 2021 comments on vaccination remain one of the clearest examples of a Russian church leader using moral language to argue for public health measures.
Sources: Greek City Times, 6 July 2021; Wikipedia: Hilarion Alfeyev; Wikipedia: COVID-19 vaccination in Russia; Orthodox Times, 13 April 2021; OrthoChristian, 22 December 2021; OrthoChristian, 7 June 2022.
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