The British government issued sanctions against the Russian Orthodox Church’s leader on Thursday.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia was “sanctioned for his support and encouragement of Putin’s war,” the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office stated in a statement on June 16.
The announcement occurred after European Union member states were unable to reach an agreement on whether Patriarch Kirill should face penalties after the European Commission, the EU’s executive department, submitted his name. His participation was apparently met with opposition in Hungary.
Andrii Yurash, Ukraine’s envoy to the Holy See, praised the United Kingdom’s decision.
He claimed the Russian Orthodox Church and its officials had to pay the “same price as Putin for killing thousands and ruining Ukraine” in a tweet.
patriarch kirill underSanctionsOf🇬🇧! It’sGreatConfirmation of that what we’ve beenExpressing from1stDays of war:russian🇷🇺church&its leaders have pay samePrice as putin for killing thousands&destroying🇺🇦! Dear Amb.Of🇬🇧to🇻🇦@ChrisTrott &allOther 🇬🇧Friends, we’llRememberYour support! pic.twitter.com/2BrqDFoLxH
— Andrii Yurash (@AndriiYurash) June 16, 2022
However, Vladimir Legoida, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Synodal Department for Church-State Relations and Mass Media, denounced the move.
“Attempts to frighten the head of the Russian Church or to compel him to forsake his ideas are pointless, stupid, and futile,” he stated in a statement on the Moscow Patriarchate’s official website on June 16.
“The Patriarch’s family went through years of godless persecution, and he himself grew up and formed under tremendous pressure on the faith, to which he has always honorably resisted,” he commented.
Legoida added: “The Church — especially now — is the last bridge, the means of communication, which they are trying to destroy for some reason. It may be needed only by those political forces who have made escalation of conflict and alienation of peace their important goal.”
“Otherwise I cannot explain such absurd and counterproductive measures, which contribute to only one thing — to break up the already severely damaged communication between the European community and Russia.”
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, a number of notable Russian people have been placed to the United Kingdom’s sanctions list. Asset freezes and travel restrictions to the United Kingdom were among the punishments imposed.
U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: “Today we are targeting the enablers and perpetrators of Putin’s war who have brought untold suffering to Ukraine, including the forced transfer and adoption of children.”
“We will not tire of defending freedom and democracy, and keeping up the pressure on Putin, until Ukraine succeeds.”
The Russian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with an estimated 150 million adherents, making up more than half of all Orthodox Christians on the planet.
The conflict in Ukraine has strained relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and other Eastern Orthodox Churches.
It’s also caused Catholic bishops from all around Europe to call on Kirill to condemn the invasion. Archbishop Stanisaw Gdecki of Poland, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Germany, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, and the Irish bishops are among them.
During a video conference conversation on March 16, Pope Francis voiced alarm about Patriarch Kirill’s attitude on the conflict, according to an interview released on May 3.
The pope went on to state that he and Kirill had canceled a meeting planned for June 14 in Jerusalem because “we decided that it may convey the wrong impression.”
In an interview released this week, Pope Francis stated that he intended to see Patriarch Kirill in Kazakhstan in September.
“I had a 40-minute conversation with Patriarch Kirill. In the first part, he read me a declaration in which he gave reasons justifying the war. When he finished, I intervened and told him: ‘Brother, we are not clerics of the State, we are pastors of the people,’” the pope recalled.
“I was to have met him on June 14 in Jerusalem, to talk about our shared issues. But with the war, by mutual agreement, we decided to postpone the meeting to a later date, so that our dialogue would not be misunderstood.”
“I hope to meet him at a general assembly in Kazakhstan in September. I hope to be able to greet him and speak a little with him as a pastor.”