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Ukraine’s Secret Service probes Russian Patriarch
By Lilia Kovalyk-Vasiuta, OSV News
November 8, 2023
LVIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine’s Secret Service, SBU, has gathered evidence against Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who, it said, “blessed the racists to kill Ukrainians.”
“The Security Service and the Prosecutor General’s Office gathered evidence against the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Volodymyr Gundyaev (known as Kirill), who promotes armed aggression of the Russian Federation and denies the war crimes of the occupiers,” the Nov. 4 statement of the institutions said.
According to the investigation, the Moscow Patriarch “is a member of the inner circle of Russia’s top military and political leadership” and was “one of the first to publicly support a full-scale war against Ukraine.” The report also said Kirill “regularly spreads Kremlin narratives” in the form of online sermons or his own video comments. The SBU and Ukraine’s Prosecutor gave two concrete examples of a video posting from March 2022, where Kirill “blessed the commander of the Rosgvardia (National Guard), (Victor) Zolotov, for the war against Ukraine.”
In February 2023, SBU said, “a video was released on the ROC’s official YouTube channel in which Gundyaev (Kirill) justified the occupation of the East of Ukraine.” In addition, the Patriarch “repeatedly gave interviews to propagandists of Russia’s central TV channels, in which he supported the Kremlin’s aggressive policy and called on the faithful to unite in the war against Ukraine,” SBU said.
The SBU specified that Kirill is suspected under several articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, including “encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine; justification, recognition as legitimate … of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, glorification of its participants,” as well as “planning, preparation, launching and conducting an aggressive war.”
According to the Security Service, since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, 70 criminal proceedings have been initiated against representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate, with 16 of them being metropolitans of the church.
From the first days of the full-scale invasion, Kirill blessed the aggressors for a “holy war.”
“The church realizes that if someone, driven by a sense of duty and the need to honour his oath, stays loyal to his vocation and dies while carrying out his military duty, then he is without any doubt doing a deed that is equal to sacrifice. He sacrifices himself for others. And therefore, we believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins that a person has committed,” Kirill stated in a September 2022 sermon.
LVIV, Ukraine
Ukraine’s Secret Service, SBU, has gathered evidence against Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who, it said, “blessed the racists to kill Ukrainians.”
“The Security Service and the Prosecutor General’s Office gathered evidence against the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Volodymyr Gundyaev (known as Kirill), who promotes armed aggression of the Russian Federation and denies the war crimes of the occupiers,” the Nov. 4 statement of the institutions said.
According to the investigation, the Moscow Patriarch “is a member of the inner circle of Russia’s top military and political leadership” and was “one of the first to publicly support a full-scale war against Ukraine.” The report also said Kirill “regularly spreads Kremlin narratives” in the form of online sermons or his own video comments. The SBU and Ukraine’s Prosecutor gave two concrete examples of a video posting from March 2022, where Kirill “blessed the commander of the Rosgvardia (National Guard), (Victor) Zolotov, for the war against Ukraine.”
In February 2023, SBU said, “a video was released on the ROC’s official YouTube channel in which Gundyaev (Kirill) justified the occupation of the East of Ukraine.” In addition, the Patriarch “repeatedly gave interviews to propagandists of Russia’s central TV channels, in which he supported the Kremlin’s aggressive policy and called on the faithful to unite in the war against Ukraine,” SBU said.
The SBU specified that Kirill is suspected under several articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, including “encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine; justification, recognition as legitimate … of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, glorification of its participants,” as well as “planning, preparation, launching and conducting an aggressive war.”
According to the Security Service, since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, 70 criminal proceedings have been initiated against representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate, with 16 of them being metropolitans of the church.
From the first days of the full-scale invasion, Kirill blessed the aggressors for a “holy war.”
“The church realizes that if someone, driven by a sense of duty and the need to honour his oath, stays loyal to his vocation and dies while carrying out his military duty, then he is without any doubt doing a deed that is equal to sacrifice. He sacrifices himself for others. And therefore, we believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins that a person has committed,” Kirill stated in a September 2022 sermon.