Metropolitan Hilarion believes Emperor Nicholas II made a mistake when he joined World War I

   

Moscow, - Head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations (DECR) Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk sees the reason of Bolshevism and mass repressions in Emperor Nicholas II's decision to join World War I.

"The war had longterm consequences for the majority of countries involved in it. If Russia had not joined the war, there would have been no Bolshevism, starvation, dispossession of kulaks and cossacks, mass repressions," Metropolitan Hilarion said at the opening ceremony of the requiem concert dedicated to the 100th anniversary of World War I commence in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire, the DECR communication service reports.
He notes that scientists still argue who won and who lost that war.
"From the formal point of view, Germany with its allies lost the war, but can we say that Russia won the war? The military actions seemed successful for it in the beginning, in 1914, but following three years of the war so much weakened the country's forces and resources, that the empire failed, and Bolsheviks with Germany's help managed to capture power almost without fighting, with bare hands," the hierarch said.