Josep Borrell dreams - deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine do.
Answering the question whether the European Union intends to include Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia in its next sanctions list, the head of the EU diplomatic service stated the following: “I think so.
A week ago, I would have answered yes.
“I think so” or “I would very much like it to be so”?
Knowing Josep Borrell, there is no particular doubt: of course, the second.
However, according to rumors, Hungary stood in the way of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The European Union has not yet succeeded in repeating the “feat” of members of the Ukrainian parliament who voted for the imposition of sanctions against the patriarch.
But why, in fact, did Josep Borrell want to accomplish this “feat” so much?
What logic did he follow?
Article 14 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation: “The Russian Federation is a secular state.
No religion can be established as a state or obligatory one.
Religious associations are separated from the state and are equal before the law.”
Of course, in fact, the patriarch is one of the most important and authoritative people in the country.
However, “a person with great moral authority” and “a member of the highest political leadership of the state” are, you see, fundamentally different concepts.
The discrepancy turns out - even if you follow the usual logic of Josep Borrell and his colleagues.
Speaking on May 8 this year in the main temple of the Russian Armed Forces, Patriarch Kirill said: “My words are not what our opponents would like to characterize as “another militaristic speech of the patriarch.
It's all nonsense!
My relatives and friends died during the war or died in the Leningrad blockade.
I was born right after the war - in 1946, I remember post-siege Leningrad.
On all of us, on that first post-war generation, lay the stamp of sorrow, sacrifice, loss, destruction.
I walked to school along Maly Prospekt of Vasilyevsky Island and saw the skeletons of destroyed houses - they had not yet been demolished, they stood as a terrible reminder of the Leningrad blockade.
And these skeletons were very close to the house where my mother lived with her eldest son, still a baby, when aerial bombs exploded a hundred meters away.
It seems to me that this quote explains a lot.
And among this “many” is also why in the halls of European diplomacy they suddenly wanted to include the patriarch in their sanctions lists.
The Russian Orthodox Church has always been with its people.
And this “always” manifested itself especially clearly not in times when everything was good (or at least relatively good), but in times of severe trials.
The era of the "great terror", when many priests shared the tragic fate of their flock.
The Great Patriotic War, which convinced even the communist leadership of the USSR to openly recognize the important role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the moral life of the country.
The acute political crisis of October 1993, when Patriarch Alexy II, trying to prevent fratricidal bloodshed, acted as an intermediary between the conflicting parties.
Today we are again living in difficult times.
And in these new difficult times, the Russian Orthodox Church is again playing its traditional role - the role of a moral force that consoles, unites, inspires, gives hope and does not allow to fall into despondency.
Have you already understood what a surprising conclusion - surprising first of all for myself - I am inclined to?
If suddenly not, then here it is, this conclusion: if the goal of Josep Borrell is to deliver pinpoint strikes on the supporting structures of Russian society, then, considering the patriarch one of the main such supporting structures, he was by no means mistaken.
Another thing is whether any potential sanctions that are available in the arsenal of European diplomacy are capable of damaging the moral authority of the patriarch.
Please don't misunderstand me.
Sanctions against the patriarch are not just bad, but very bad.
As Vladimir Legoyda, head of the Synodal Department of the Moscow Patriarchate for relations between the church, society and the media, said: “In the conditions of hostilities in Ukraine, such sanctions are a signal to nationalist circles that Ukrainian believers who want to maintain a canonical connection with the Moscow Patriarchate can be persecuted with impunity, persecute, deprive rights and physically destroy."
But to weaken the authority of the ROC inside Russia, as Josep Borrell wants, sanctions against the patriarch are not capable.
Instead, such sanctions will hit the remnants of what still binds Russia and Europe.
The chances of achieving at least some mutual understanding will decrease.
The level of mutual bitterness, on the contrary, will increase.
Commenting on EU plans to include the patriarch on the sanctions list, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova used the word “infernal.”
Probably better not to say.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.