JRL NEWSWATCH: “The Russian Orthodox Leader at the Core of Putin’s Ambitions” – New York Times
“Patriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the invasion of Ukraine, reaping vast resources for his church in return. Now, in an extraordinary step, the E.U. is threatening him with sanctions.”
“… Kirill … has staked the fortunes of his branch of Orthodox Christianity on a close and mutually beneficial alliance with [] Putin …. To his critics, the arrangement has made Kirill far more than another apparatchik, oligarch or [Putin] enabler … but an essential part of the nationalist ideology at the heart of the Kremlin’s expansionist designs. … Kirill’s role is so important that European officials [reportedly] have included him on a list of individuals … [potentially] target[ed] [for] … sanctions …. an extraordinary measure against a religious leader, its closest antecedent perhaps … [U.S.] sanctions … against Iran’s … Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. … Kirill’s critics have argued that his formative experience … during the Soviet era … tragically led him into [] Putin’s empowering and … inescapable embrace, turning the Russian Orthodox Church under Kirill[] … into a corrupted spiritual branch of an authoritarian state. …”