On March 8, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, President of the Catholic Bishops' Conferences of the EU, appealed to Patriarch Kirill: The head of the Russian Orthodox Church should influence the Moscow authorities to seek a "diplomatic solution to the conflict" in Ukraine, based on “dialogue, common sense and respect for international law”.

Nine days later, the Archbishop of Luxembourg received a reply from Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the foreign office of the Russian Orthodox Church, which must be taken as a rejection.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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There is talk of "dramatic events on the tried and tested soil of Ukraine".

But it was "quite obvious that the current conflict cannot be solved with ever new public declarations".

Like the Russian Foreign Ministry, Hilarion calls for a "rejection of the language of ultimatums".

The metropolitan wrote that a “special prayer for the speedy restoration of peace” was included in the liturgy in Ukraine.

But just a few days earlier, Patriarch Kirill had made it clear what that meant from a Moscow perspective: During a service in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior, he presented Viktor Solotov, head of the National Guard, with an icon of the Mother of God, which "inspires the young warriors “ should.

Solotov said

Pope Francis, hoping for an invitation to Moscow after his historic meeting with Kirill in Cuba in 2016, may well wish to play a mediating role to end the war.

He refrained from direct criticism of Russia or its president.

After all, Francis speaks of war, unlike Kirill.

Because the word is taboo in Russia for direct combat operations, Vladimir Putin's word of a "military special operation" applies.

After a video conference between the Pope and the Patriarch, Moscow spoke of a "critical situation in Ukraine".

In Hilarion's response, the (also unnamed) war appears as a sad thing - not as a result of the Russian incursion, but as a result of "the West-Russia relationship has reached an impasse".

Kirill supports Putin's neo-imperial course

Actually, the Catholic Church should be clear that Kirill is out of the question to moderate Putin.

Rather, the Russian Orthodox Church has become a solid pillar of power in recent years.

The patriarch also bases Putin's neo-imperial alignment on a new Moscow-not-Kyiv-led “Rus” of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

This course was one of the main reasons why the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (KP) sought autocephaly and received this independence a few years ago.

However, the conflict over Ukraine that escalated in 2014 also led to tensions in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (MP).

True to the Kremlin line taken at the time, some of Kirill's priests called for a fight against the "fascists" of the "Kiev Junta".

Others renounced Moscow.

Now, in the war, many MP Church dioceses have stopped mentioning their leader, Kirill, in services.

The KP Church reports the conversion of dozens of communities and monasteries.

Kirill's church has criticized a proposed Ukrainian law that would nationalize MP church property and ban it in Ukraine.

For years, Kirill has portrayed Russia as a bulwark against a western, “godless civilization”.

Now, too, he is adding a value dimension to Putin's narrative of the "genocide" in the "people's republics" of eastern Ukraine.

Kirill said in a church service on March 6 that for eight years attempts have been made "to destroy what exists in Donbass".

There they reject “the so-called values ​​proposed by those who claim world power”.

In Kremlin terms, that means America.

As examples, Kirill - who himself has a penchant for Western luxury goods such as watches - cited "excessive consumption" and above all "gay pride parades".

A "real war" is raging over the latter, Kirill said;

Believers "entered a struggle that has not physical but metaphysical significance."

Kirill had already described Putin's Syria mission as a "holy fight".

The Patriarch's recent statements amount to a "sacred special operation."

In addition, like Putin, Kirill negates any independence of the Ukrainians, who for him are part of a unified “Russian people”.

Like Putin, Kirill blames the conflict on external (i.e. Western) forces that wanted to “weaken Russia”.

"But how mean and vile it is to use the fraternal people to achieve these geopolitical goals!" he preached, criticizing "religious organizations" that called for "struggle against the fraternal Russian people."

This apparently referred to the Ukrainian branch of his own church, whose leader, Metropolitan Onufrij, openly called on Putin to end the "fratricidal war"

Experts interviewed by the news portal “Medusa” assume that the MP church is likely to break with Moscow because of the war.

Kirill's church would lose thousands of congregations and priests;

that would be the next setback after the autocephaly of the CP church.

But there is nothing to indicate that Kirill wants to free his church from the fateful connection to the Kremlin.