Following the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) celebrates Easter this weekend – the most important religious festival of its liturgical year. One priest who will not be leading a service is Dmitry Safronov, a prominent Moscow cleric. In March, Mr Safronov presided over a memorial service at the grave of Alexei Navalny, following the dissident’s death in unexplained circumstances in an Arctic penal colony. He was subsequently suspended from the priesthood for three years and can no longer preach or wear a cassock.
Such is the degraded state of the ROC under the leadership of Patriarch Kirill, the theological cheerleader for Russia’s blood-soaked campaign to reintegrate Ukraine into “Holy Rus”. Kirill’s ever more strident backing of Vladimir Putin’s illegal war led Pope Francis to warn him against becoming “Putin’s altar boy”. But his role in sustaining support for the Kremlin’s neo-imperial ambitions, and justifying repression at home, is far more senior than that.
