Wearing crisp, olive-green robes and a towering, white head covering embroidered with the somber face of Jesus, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, addressed the faithful from an ornate 10,000-seat cathedral in Moscow.
For weeks, religious leaders around the globe had been begging the bearded patriarch to speak out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But in weekly sermons that air live on Russian TV, Kirill, 75, has done just the opposite, painting the war as an apocalyptic battle against evil forces that have sought to destroy the God-given unity of Holy Russia.
The day before Russians marched on Ukraine, he congratulated Russian soldiers as defenders of the fatherland and said they "cannot have any doubt that they have chosen a very correct path in their lives." Less than two weeks after the invasion began, he described the conflict as having "metaphysical significance" and warned his flock that the price of admission to the happy world of Western consumption and freedom was as simple as it was terrible: to agree to hold gay pride parades.
