Arguing Against Patriarch Kirill and For Ukraine

 American Protestants do not understand how much of the Ukranian war is a religious war. They probably do not understand that President Putin probably thinks they are heretics, not worthy of respect. 

Today, I read Lidiya Lozova's Should Orthodox Christians Leave Patriarch Kirill to Caesar? A Response to Fr. John Chryssavgis, and urge any of you wondering about why we should support Ukraine, or, if any of you are Orthodox Christians, why we should question how our Patriarchs treat Kirill.

I understand that the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its leader, Patriarch Bartholomew—who alone, out of all other Orthodox primates, continues condemning Kirill in his sermons and public speeches—probably feels helpless to do anything on a bigger scale without the participation of other Orthodox hierarchs who prefer to leave things as they are. But in my opinion, this should not lead to the conclusion that we—as Orthodox Christians—can only pray (which is, however, very important) and wait until the Caesar—and not the church—finally does something about the criminal patriarch. On the contrary, I believe that we should emphasize that Kirill’s preaching and behavior are deeply erroneous from the strictly Christian point of view– which has already been done by Sr Vassa (Larin), Dr. Serhii Shumylo, Rev. Prof. Brandon Gallaher, Rev. Dr. Cyril Hovorun and other theologians, to some of whom Fr. John refers at the beginning of his article. Unfortunately, this is far from self-evident for too many Christians worldwide, even though I strongly agree with the point that together with the secular society, the church needs to recognize him as a criminal political bully. And if other church leaders are sharing Kirill’s mindset to a certain extent, if others are indeed “small kirills” bred by global Orthodoxy, this effort could become even greater. From inside Ukraine, at least, we simply cannot be silent.

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