Kiev and Moscow, December 18, 2023
Photo: RIA-Novosti
On November 4, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officially announced a case against His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia for his support of the war in Ukraine and “encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine.”
The SBU reports that it conducted a study of the Patriarch’s homilies and interviews over the past two years, “in which he supported the aggressive policy of the Kremlin.”
And now the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs has put Pat. Kirill on its wanted list. The entry on the Ministry site claims the Patriarch “disappeared” in Moscow on November 11.
In turn, the Investigative Committee of Russia announced a search for Ukrainian officials who first announced their search for Pat. Kirill, which the Investigative Committee describes as the “illegal prosecution of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.”
“The Patriarch isn’t hiding from anyone,” commented Patriarchal advisor Archpriest Nikolai Balashov. “Come, we’re waiting.”
Vladimir Legoida, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations of the Church with Society and the Media, also commented:
This step is as predictable as it is absurd…
All that can be attributed to the Primate of the Russian Church is a faithful and consistent position in defense of the canonical Church in Ukraine. Condemning and denouncing the schism provoked by Phanar is what the Patriarch is obliged to do by virtue of his duty to God and people.
As for those who put the Patriarch on the wanted list, most of them studied at a Soviet school, not in the least objecting to the godless ideology, while the grandfather and father of the Primate of the Russian Church were persecuted for their faith. Should the heirs of the God-fighters try to intimidate him?
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