In recent historiography, scholars have argued that the Russians used Orthodoxy in their attempts to bring the Christian population to their side and thereby subvert Ottoman rule. While that may have been true in the Balkans, there is no evidence that such an approach was adopted in regard to the Arab Orthodox community. This paper will examine the Arabic writings of Orthodox authors from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. These writing show deep admiration for the “Maskob,” as the Russians were called, and appear in poetry, travel accounts, and geographical descriptions. The paper will show that insofar as Arab writers were concerned, the commonality of Orthodoxy with the Russians did not lead to political alienation from Ottoman rule. Nor did the Russians view the Orthodox Arabs as a potential fifth column. Actually, and in the middle of the eighteenth century, it was Muslim leaders such as Dhahir al-Umar, eager to secede from the Ottomans, who turned to Queen Catherine for military and naval assistance.