A peculiarity of the unseen hands that compile the Court Circular is that, out of a sort of cultic reverence, the Queen is referred to as The Queen, as though even such a common item as a definite article were amplified by its proximity to the monarch. Last week, the Court Circular in The Daily Telegraph, above the Forthcoming Marriages, announced: “His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, was received by The Queen today.”

Behind its excluding paywall, The Times relayed the Court Circular in exactly the same words, down to the capital T. But, a few pages away, a letter from the Ukrainian ambassador said that receiving Patriarch Kirill at Buckingham Palace “risked appearing to endorse the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine and Syria”.

The letter came in response to a news item that had said: “The Ukrainian embassy has criticised the Queen for inviting the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to Buckingham Palace.” The report noted that “Natalia Galibarenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, said that Patriarch Kirill was a former KGB agent who has been outspoken in his support of Russian aggression.