“Our churches have a spiritual potential, when realised, to help politicians make the right decisions,” Kirill said last weekend during a visit to Moscow by Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia.
“Every time we meet, we realise our historical and cultural closeness, as well as the closeness of our views on what is happening worldwide and in inter-Orthodox relations.”
Kirill said he had been in Belgrade during Nato’s bombing campaign in March-June 1999, which killed over 1,500 Serbian soldiers and civilians, and understood the “common spiritual destiny and history” uniting the two countries at a time of “disintegration in human and inter-state ties”.
The exchanges took place as Vladimir Putin claimed victory for a fifth term with over 87 per cent in Russia’s presidential elections, and pledging to escalate military efforts against Ukraine.
In a communiqué ahead of the election, Russia’s Catholic bishops had urged voters to “remember their civic duty, guided entirely by their conscience” but did not mention the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a prison camp last month.
Russian Catholics had, however, asked Church leaders outside the country to commemorate Navalny – a Christian convert whose funeral in Moscow on 1 March attracted crowds of supporters despite the threat of arrest.
“Navalny was convicted and declared an extremist, so people inside Russia cannot speak in his defence unless they’re ready to be imprisoned themselves,” said a lecturer who works with Caritas after attending the funeral. “But Christians abroad must show how his premature death lies on the conscience of those who made his life unbearable.”
The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches said Russia’s elections were “not just worthless and illegitimate” but also “criminal”.
“They are stained by the blood of innocent people, sins of murder, deceptions of lies and common thievery,” it said in a response, comparing votes conducted in the occupied territories to “Hitler’s plebiscites”.
The primate of the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko), urged citizens to stand firm against Moscow's invasion and occupation, and to use Lent to struggle “against evil and aggression, fear and panic, disappointment and powerlessness, hopelessness and despair”.
“The current fast isn't merely about prohibitions or formal restrictions, but primarily about endurance, patience, strength and spiritual renewal,” Epiphany said in a social media post on Monday.
“We must use this period to define clear landmarks for liberation from falsehood and deceit, to muster our inner forces, find hope and affirm faith, while also ending empty disputes, unfair condemnations, divisions and disagreements in our struggle with the enemy.”
The Moscow Patriarchate severed ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Orthodox Churches in Alexandria, Greece and Cyprus over their recognition of the independent Ukrainian Church, formally established in January 2019, and has since sought to strengthen ties with sympathetic Orthodox hierarchies abroad in support of the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).
The UOC has lost hundreds of parishes to Metropolitan Epiphany’s denomination since the February 2022 Russian invasion, despite its insistence that it had ended its subordination to Moscow.
Kyiv's State Security Service has continued to bring charges against UOC clergy for supporting and collaborating with occupying forces in Ukraine. Metropolitan Feodosiy (Snegirov) of Cherkasy last weekend became the latest UOC prelate to have his year-long house arrest extended.
Parliamentarians in Ukraine, which placed Kirill on its wanted list in December, said they had strengthened a government-backed bill, due to be signed into law this month, to include a full legal ban on the Russian Orthodox Church and clearer procedures for closing down “all religious organisations affiliated with it”.
On Monday, Verkhovna Rada members said they would ignore a letter from an American law firm representing the UOC, threatening “legal liabilities” abroad if they implemented the law, and urge its adoption as a “matter of national security”.
However, an archbishop from the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which has close ties to Russia, called on churches worldwide to “intervene immediately” against the “unprecedented persecution” of Ukraine's “only canonical Orthodox Church”.
“The situation is reminiscent of what this church faced during the communist era, only the persecution is this time taking a different, extremely dangerous form,” Archbishop Theodosius (Hanna) of Sebastia said in an open letter on Monday.
“Our brothers in Christ are being deliberately persecuted for belonging to this legitimate, fraternal Orthodox church. It is essential to demand from the authorities in Kyiv that they stop their aggressive activities.”