The Brazilian magazine Veja dedicates a good deal of space to analyzing the controversial figure of Patriarch Kirill.
Newsroom(30/03/2022 11:55, Gaudium Press) In its latest issue, Veja magazine qualifies the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, as a “Pope” who gives religious support to Russian expansionism.
Alongside frivolous bits of information in the article – as in reporting that the patriarch did not wish to admit that he wears a watch worth more than 30,000 dollars – there are some more serious mentions. There is the accusation that he was an active KGB agent in Soviet times in charge of infiltrating pro-Soviet doctrines into the World Peace Council or the World Council of Churches; or that, before becoming patriarch, he was sent to the World Council of Churches to promote Liberation Theology in Latin America, with the aim of weakening the Catholic Church there.
Cardinal Duka of Prague has accused the Putin-Kirill duo of Caesaropapism, that is, the pseudo-imperial incarnation of an absolute union between Church and State that exercises complete government. Veja magazine points out that in Russia this understanding between Church and civil power even has its own name: “symphony“, that is, the perfectly coordinated performance like the notes of a single melody.
The magazine recalls some of the recent expressions of Patriarch Kirill in defense of the invasion of Ukraine: “We see it [Ukraine] as a threat, and we have the right to use force to ensure that the threat is eradicated“; or this: “We are entering a conflict that has not only physical but also metaphysical importance. We are dealing with the salvation of humanity, something much more important than politics“. These are expressions that confirm his total alignment with Putin, and justify the title of “supporter of Putin’s expansionism.”
In fact, expressions of praise for Putin have not been lacking in his career, when he called the Russian president a “miracle of God” for the strong support given to the Orthodox Church, including the restoration and construction of churches.
A very revealing mosaic
As an example of this total union between Church and State that exists in Russia, the author of the article in Veja features the recently constructed Church of the Armed Forces, complete with a metallic floor made of cannons and other weapons captured from Germany in the Second World War.
Veja also reports a little known fact: that in this same church there was a mosaic of Stalin, whose portrait was painted into a mural, but was removed from the final version. And that Putin himself, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the currently hidden Defense Minister Shogun were also removed from the mural, on Putin’s orders.
In other words, in this scenario, an authoritarian leader is an authoritarian leader, whether he is from the past, present or future, and no matter even if he has a global stigma and millions of dead on his record: he must be venerated.
Surely, according to the doctrine of Christ, there are unharmonious notes in this “symphony.”
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm