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Good morning. Yesterday I found a photo I took in 2012 of the cathedral in Chersonesus, near Sevastopol, in Crimea. At the time I was on a cruise of the Black Sea and this fold-domed church was a highlight - near where Vladimir the Great had been baptized in the year 988 - triggering the baptism of the whole of Kyiv: ‘rich and poor, beggars and slaves’. The cathedral was rebuilt in the 1990s, and opened for worship in 2004, so when I visited, it was relatively new. There were freshly painted icons in every corner and even a smart new sound system. Visitors streamed in and out, lighting candles, praying. Unbelievable though it may seem to us, it is this Christian past, shared by Russia and Ukraine, that has been used as part of the excuse for the current invasion. President Putin claims that Ukraine and Russia are one people, with one memory and one faith. But while some in Ukraine agree, many have recently abandoned the spiritual leadership of the Moscow Patriarch to join the Greeks. Here in the West we have been slow to react. Not quite believing that our often-stated beliefs in freedom and democracy could be rolled over so quickly and so brutally. We sometimes forget that our democracy has spiritual foundations, and that it can become fragile when these are forgotten. It is easy to signal support for democracies round the world, but not always so easy to match actions to words. Everyone seems now to be regretting our readiness to accept influence and investment from non-democratic powers but why did we do so in the first place? Underneath the crisis of security is a crisis of belief. What really undergirds our much-trumpeted Western values? We know many Russians as well as the Ukrainians envy our freedoms. But we have to ask ourselves, does our democracy make our poor more equal, our children better fed and educated? And how free today Is our speech really, and how easily are we manipulated? Do our institutions work for the good of all, or do they just perpetuate lazy thinking and past privilege? In the crypt of the cathedral at Chersonesus is an icon of the Virgin of the Sign. As it happens we have in Portsmouth, where I live, an icon on the same theme in our cathedral. Mary holds up her hands in prayer. Like a medallion on her breast the child Jesus holds up his hand in blessing. There can be no support from the Christian faith for this invasion. But we can only denounce Russia’s action on the basis of truth, honesty, justice and mercy: the spiritual foundations of the freedom we treasure.