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Good morning. Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian orthodox church, has said that any Russian who dies fighting in Ukraine will have their sins forgiven. He even compares their sacrificial death to Jesus. This comes as Vladimir Putin has mobilised reservists - thousands of whom have refused to serve. Given the growing evidence of potential war crimes by Russian forces, one could call Kirill's sermon "blasphemous". But let's be honest, there is a long history of church sanctioned warfare. In 1095, Pope Urban II declared that any man who joined the crusades would enjoy the remission of sins and an easier path to Heaven. These words were taken as a kind of get out of jail free card - and triggered a wave of horrific violence. Today, critics of Kirill say that he misrepresents the genuinely Christian meaning of sacrifice. Jesus’s example is that he died on behalf of other people. He gave up his own life, he didn’t take anybody else's. And martyrdom is meant to be an expression of conscience - not a case of blindly following orders, let alone immoral ones. Nevertheless, Krill returns me to a question I’ve never resolved satisfactorily for myself: how does the Christian, or anyone for that matter, stand in relation to war? Almost everybody would regard "thou shalt not kill" as a reasonable standard of human behaviour. Under what possible circumstances could it be suspended? Well, we are often pointed to the just war theory, a largely Christian philosophy. War is evil, goes the argument, but it can be a lesser evil when life is threatened or justice is under attack. And we must seek to mitigate suffering on the battlefield. I’m not sure that this mitigation has ever been adequately achieved. Battlefield munitions can exact a high price on all sides. And while I do believe in an objective definition of justice - i.e., there can be a right and wrong side in a war - what muddies the waters is that both sides always insist they are right, and often use similar appeals to civilisation or morality. During the First World War, British churches insisted God was on their side. German churches did exactly the same. Now, I regard Ukraine as a defensive war. Were I Ukrainian, I hope I'd have the courage to fight for my nation's freedom. But what if I were a patriotic Russian? Would I have the wisdom to see that Putin and Kirill are wrong? Would I have the courage to defy their orders - as so many are now doing? Expecting people to resist their own state, potentially their own church, is a big ask. It's a near intolerable act of conscience that you might call martyrdom, whether you believe in God or not.