Speaking last month at the beginning of Lent, Patriarch Kirill, the primate of the Russian Orthodox church, sermonised on the subject of Russia’s frontline role in fighting for “God’s truth”. The church, he emphasised, must play its part in the battle against the secularising forces of the liberal west in order to preserve “Holy Rus and our people, living by God’s law”.
Patriarch Kirill has deservedly become a religious pariah in the global Orthodox church as a result of his cheerleading for Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. That support shows no sign of waning, no matter the cost in lives and human misery as Mr Putin’s forces dig in. But recent events indicate that the patriarch’s cherished struggle on behalf of “Holy Rus”, defined as a spiritually unified territory including Ukraine and Belarus, has already been lost.
