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PATRIARCH KIRILL CAN’T BE INTIMIDATED BY SANCTIONS, SAYS RUSSIAN CHURCH REP

Moscow, May 5, 2022

Photo: rg.ru    

Patriarch Kirill comes from a family and Church that is well acquainted with suffering for its faith, and so he can’t be intimidated by the threat of sanctions, says Russian Church representative Vladimir Legoida.

The head of the Synodal Department for Relations Between the Church and Society and the Media earlier commented on the Lithuanian proposal to the EU to sanction the Patriarch.

And in light of reports that such a decision has reportedly already been made and will soon be announced, Legoida commented again:

My opinion remains unchanged: The more indiscriminate the sanctions become, the more they lose touch with common sense, the more distant the achievement of peace becomes, for which the Russian Orthodox Church prays with the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch at every Liturgy. My words are confirmed by the assistance to all victims of the Ukrainian conflict.

I would also remind the authors of the sanction initiatives that Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia comes from a family whose members were subjected to repression for decades for their faith and moral position during the times of militant communist atheism. And none of them were afraid of imprisonment or even reprisals, so you have to be completely unfamiliar with the history of our Church in order to try to intimidate its clergy and faithful by entering them into some lists.

As OrthoChristian reported earlier this week, a bill has been submitted to the Ukrainian Parliament calling for sanctions against the Patriarch, as well as Metropolitans Hilarion (Alfeyev) and Tikhon (Shevkunov) and Archpriest Nikolai Balashov.