The European Union proposes to level sanctions against Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, on the claim that he is one of the most prominent supporters of Russia’s war in Ukraine. According to Politico, the Patriarch is accused in a European External Action Service document of being “one of the most prominent supporters of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine,” and a key player in amplifying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric on Ukraine, citing allegedly pro-war sermons and remarks by Kirill, plus his blessing for Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
The Patriarch refuted these EU accusations, in responding to Pope Francis, who in an interview with Italy’s Corriere Della Sera, had insulted the Patriarch as “Putin’s altar boy.” The Pope asserted that Patriarch Kirill had read him a list of “justifications of the war” in Ukraine when the two had spoken by Zoom on March 16, to which he had replied when he finished, “Brother, we are not state clerics…. A Patriarch can’t lower himself to become Putin’s altar boy.” He reported that the two religious leaders had a meeting scheduled for June 14 in Jerusalem, which would have been their second face-to-face encounter, “nothing to do with the war. But we called it off, we agreed that it could send the wrong message.”
The office of the Patriarch issued a considerably more diplomatic statement: “It is regrettable that a month and a half after the conversation with Patriarch Kirill, Pope Francis chose the wrong tone to convey the content of this conversation. Such statements are unlikely to contribute to the establishment of a constructive dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, which is especially necessary at the present time.”
