Questions for Russian Patriarch Kirill I

Rome, December 4, 2025, Presentation of the Document Denouncing Persecutions by Sergei Chapnin

Four Premises:

· The limited competence of a religious writer (not an academic, not a geopolitical expert).

· Never confuse the glorious, millennia-long history of the peoples of ‘Rus’ with the current historical segment of the war; never confuse the theological-spiritual heritage of the Russian Orthodox Church with the questionable choices of recent months; never confuse or identify the leadership group with the overall body of a Church and its mystery of grace.

· A path of ecumenism for Christian Churches and a shared Christian testimony are unimaginable without the contribution of the Russian and Slavic Orthodox Church.

· Russia and the West have always been attracted to and rejected each other. It is wise to see the limits of both, yet without refraining from judging individual cases.

1. Why identify with the political power’s wartime narrative in the military aggression against Ukraine? (From Kirill’s address to the plenary session of the 27th World Russian People’s Council, November 19, 2025):

· Denazification of Ukraine and the entire West.

· The war (military operation) is a continuation of the Great Patriotic War. Narratives questioning its value are intolerable.

· The war is just because it defends the homeland.

· The war is holy because by fighting one attains eternal salvation.

· The war is evangelical because it protects one’s neighbor and restores justice.

· The war is Christian because it defends “the world center of Orthodox Christianity, the Third Rome, the hub and bearer of authentic Christian values.”

2. Why contradict a conciliar text, approved by the bishops in 2000: The Foundations of the Social Concept. Why refute the explicit condemnation of aggressive war contained in Orthodox-Russian social doctrine? (Chapter III, Section 8). Why shirk the duty of urging political leaders to make choices for peace? (Chapter 8, Section 5). Why deny Ukraine the internationally recognized rights of states? (Chapter 16, Section 1).

3. Why is a Church that survived persecution in the Soviet Union now becoming Sovietized in its internal structures? Does the authoritarian and dictatorial bending of Putin’s power in the Russian Federation correspond to a progressive “Sovietization” of the leadership of the Orthodox Church? Is it pursuing clerical centralization, fostering a “vertical” of power, stifling all dissent, normalizing and weakening monastic tradition, acting in concert with the secret police? In other words, is it adopting the forms and tools of “Soviet” power to accompany in unison the neo-imperial power?

   More bishops and fewer starets (elders).

   More churches and fewer witnesses (underground churches of the Soviet era).

   More censorship (300 signatory priests, Hilarion and Nestor) than pastoral or theological research.

4. Why jeopardize seventy years of ecumenism? Why ignore the critical judgment of over 350 Christian Churches (11th General Assembly of the WCC in Karlsruhe, September 2022)? Why leave without outcome the meeting with the interim General Secretary Ioan Sauca the following month and his proposal for a summit of concerned Churches? Why not respond to the appeals of over 100 Christian Churches of the CEC (Conference of European Churches)? Why ignore the invitation from Pope Francis not to don the robes of a “state cleric” in the dialogue of May 4, 2022?

5. Why split the Orthodox Churches by pitting Hellenic Churches against Slavic ones? Why transform the canonical debate on Ukrainian autocephaly into a theological clash that denies Eucharistic communion to those who dissent from the Russian Church’s direction? Why denounce administrative harassment against the non-autocephalous Ukrainian Church while remaining silent about anti-ecclesial violence perpetrated by Russian authorities in occupied territories?

6. How to reconcile the universalism of the Christian faith with the sacralization of Russian ethnicity and tradition? How to make the “Russian World” (Russkiy Mir) the determinant of fidelity to the Gospel of Jesus? (Cf. Mandate of the General Assembly of the World Russian People’s Council, March 27, 2024, and the position of Orthodox theologians).