The Armed Forces of Ukraine, law enforcement, and the entire Ukrainian nation are preparing for further, massive terrorist attacks by the Russian occupiers on the eve and during Easter – one of the most important holidays of the liturgical year. This is not surprising, because for Russian monsters, Easter has turned from a religious holiday into yet another opportunity to demonstrate the level of their unprecedented atrocities.
The bloody murders of civilians, destruction of Ukrainian religiosity and the nation as such were personally blessed by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Cyril (Gundyaev). The patriarch has long earned a reputation of a loyal servant of the Putin regime, so his true mission, which he fulfills with shameless blasphemy and colossal financial flows, has long ceased to be identified with the basic concepts of being part of the clergy.
“Tobacco Metropolitan”, “supporter of Kremlin terrorism” – this is how the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church is often mocked in Russia and beyond. And if we recall his connections with the secret services, dating back to the Soviet era (many have heard about KGB agent “Mikhailov”), the question arises: whether Cyril (Gundyaev) at least once played the role of an actual Orthodox “pastor” or selflessly cared for the lost souls of Russians and faithful parishioners?
The events of recent weeks have clearly shown that the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church is not about philanthropy or humanism. His outright hypocrisy, cynicism, and a complex of fanatical omnipotence resulted in the humble approval of all possible and impossible ways of war against Ukraine, all forms of violence.
However, in addition to supporting the Putin regime, the Moscow patriarch made sexist statements about the “place of women” in modern Russia (as an example, comparing them with the “incubator” to deliver more manpower to the Russian army). And, not surprisingly, such statements are positively perceived by the majority of ROC believers.
However, this situation is not surprising, as impoverished, poor, illiterate Russians, criminals, and, more recently, military generals-murderers and their rapist soldiers turn out to be among the faithful of the Moscow Patriarchate. A separate category of believers are oligarchs, politicians, and media people who have no basic notion of church etiquette, but generously open the wallets of donations for their own “salvation”. Through their financial participation in the life of the ROC and its leader, all these individuals receive “unlimited Orthodox indulgences and forgiveness.”
It is noteworthy that the cynical and barbaric instructions and appeals of the patriarch, which have absolutely nothing to do with Christian ideology, are necessarily accompanied by a sad expression on his face, full of “desperate feelings” for the secular life of all Orthodox parishioners. At the same time, he brazenly manipulates the Bible text in the peculiar ways and confidently introduces it into the Sunday church service. To this is added a portion of the sacred aroma of incense, and a deadly cocktail of justification for Putin’s policies for the masses is ready.
Thus, the “noble” goal of the “sanctified Russian Empire” and the immunity from sins before the Court of God presented by Cyril (Gundyaev) provide an unlimited quota for aggression and terrorism of any level.
An analysis of the recent speeches by the ROC leader showed that a lot of hard work has been accumulated for the esteemed patriarch and his propagandistic servants during Lent.
Easter and the May 9 Victory Day, a sacred date for the Russians, are soon to be marked. In the near future, we should expect another batch of bloody appeals with manipulative distortion of the Holy Scriptures.
The tandem of Cyril (Gundyaev) and Vladimir Putin looks interesting these days. The president of Russia has fanatically immersed himself in his painful world of paranoia, completely detached from reality, while his “spiritual shepherd” has long shown symptoms of intoxication from passion to unfathomable influence over the masses and blood of victims of own games behind the scenes.
At the same time, Putin, enlisting the support of the Moscow Patriarch, probably failed to notice his growing ambitions. Patriarch Cyril (Gundyaev) prefers to be to the right of the ruler of the Russian Federation: at parades, at stadium appearances, during large-scale public speeches, and informal meetings. He probably wants to be around in an official photo or portrait with Putin, ahead of military leaders like Shoigu, Dvornikov, Zolotov, or Bortnikov.
This is probably why neither Pope Francis nor Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew are able to reach the Moscow patriarch with their words of peace and the need to end the war. This tendency, in the end, may lead the patriarch to boldly quote Louis XIV: “The state is me.”
After all, if we remember that the KGB agent “Mikhailov” is, first of all, a typical Russian in a respectable office, it becomes clear that on Easter he also wants to get something “ordinary” and “worldly”: some major PR, a documentary shot about him, perhaps canonization during his lifetime, the further expansion of his business empire, whose scale has long been shocking the civilized world. However, for modern Russia, such ambitions of its “spiritual leader” do not seem extraordinary.
