‘Russian Orthodoxy’s Leaders Are Instruments of Russian State Power’

Dear Brother Archons and Friends of the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,

Please take a moment to read this brief article in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal. It explains clearly and concisely how Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine has just entered a cruel new phase, presenting new dangers not only to Ukraine, but to the world at large.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, has just published a book, War: Beyond the Visible Causes and Consequences, offering spurious spiritual justifications for what he has already claimed is a “holy war” between Russia and Ukraine.

In casting Putin’s savage war as one that will bring spiritual rewards to Russians who participate in it, Kirill has provided a foundation for the prolongation of that war, and for the senseless and tragic deaths of untold numbers of Ukrainians and Russians in pursuit of Russia’s neo-colonial, neo-Soviet global ambitions.

Standing in Kirill’s way is His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who is, as the WSJ article says, “the ‘first among equals’ in world Orthodoxy.” The Ecumenical Patriarch “has criticized Russian aggression and specifically condemned Patriarch Kirill’s efforts to give a veneer of religious sanction to the war.”

Please note also that the WSJ article states that “Russian Orthodoxy’s leaders are instruments of Russian state power.” The Moscow Patriarch is not an innocent bystander, or a victim of Putin; he is, on the contrary, Putin’s willing collaborator in their efforts to destroy Ukraine.

If they succeed, the consequences will be catastrophic for the Orthodox Church worldwide, as well as for the West, and for the world at large.

Yours in the service of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,