Patriarch Kirill denies receiving orders from Putin

Moscow, April 18 – The Patriarch of Moscow and the first of Russia, Kirill, said that the President of Russia did not give him any orders, no matter what his opponents thought about it.

“Some of our opponents, pointing fingers, say here – there the patriarch, they say, is acting on orders from the president. And I tell you before God: the president did not give any orders to the patriarch, he does,” Patriarch Kirill said in a sermon after the Divine Liturgy in the Nikolo-Ugreshsky Monastery in Moscow. On Tuesday: “Don’t give them, I’m sure – as a person of faith, going to church, you don’t give will.” The Soyuz TV channel broadcast the liturgy on YouTube.

He noted that today in Russia there is a “symphony of secular and ecclesiastical power,” which Byzantium dreamed of, but was not realized there because of the special role of the emperor, “who considered himself the head of the church.”

In March 2022, Patriarch Kirill held remote talks with the heads of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope of Rome and the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. They discussed the problems of helping refugees, the right of everyone to recognize their own faith and mother tongue without political persecution, and the role of Christians in the search for peace in Ukraine. Subsequently, Pope Francis, in an interview with Corriere della Sera, said that Patriarch Kirill, during their meeting on the Internet, “read the rationale” for the special operation in Ukraine with a piece of paper in his hand. The expression “Putin’s altar boy” was also used to describe Patriarch Kirill.

Subsequently, the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate reported that the Pope incorrectly presented the conversation, expressing regret about this.