Pope Francis has challenged Patriarch Kirill over his support of the war in Ukraine warning that the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church “cannot become Putin’s altar boy”.
In an interview with Corriere della Sera, Francis explained that during their 40-minute zoom discussion in March the Patriarch spent half of it reading out justifications for President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I listened and told him: I don't understand anything about this. Brother, we are not state clerics, we cannot use the language of politics, but that of Jesus,” the Pope said. “We are shepherds of the same holy people of God. That is why we must seek ways of peace.”
He added: “The Patriarch cannot become Putin's altar boy.”
In 2016, Francis managed to secure a historic meeting with Patriarch Kirill in Havana, Cuba, the first in nearly 1,000 years since the split between Eastern orthodoxy and Rome. The pair had planned a second encounter in Jerusalem on 14 June, but that has been called off.
The Pope told the Italian daily newspaper that he has offered to meet President Putin in Moscow as part of the Holy See’s peace efforts, but the Kremlin has yet to respond. “I fear that Putin cannot and does not want to have this meeting right now,” Francis said, adding that he has no plans to go to Ukraine.
Since the war began in February, the Pope has repeatedly condemned the invasion of Ukraine and the suffering inflicted on the Ukrainian people. He has, however, avoided mentioning Russia and Putin by name as the Vatican has sought to work its diplomatic channels and maintain dialogue with the Russian orthodox leadership. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s Secretary of State, has offered the Vatican’s services as a mediator. Francis described Parolin as a “great diplomat” in the tradition of Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, the Secretary of State and highly skilled diplomat who navigated the Church’s relationship with the Soviet Union.
During the interview, the Pope reflected on the causes of the war saying that NATO “barking at the door of Russia” may have facilitated the conflict. Francis likened what was happening in Ukraine to the genocide in Rwanda and the 1930s civil war in Spain. He repeated his condemnation of the arms trade and said that wars take place to “test” the weapons that have been made.
“I don’t know how to answer– I am too far away – whether it is right to supply the Ukrainians,” he added.
Back in 2014, the Pope warned that a third world war was taking place in a piecemeal fashion, which in the Corriere interview he said was a simple acknowledgement of reality pointing to conflicts in Syria, Yemen and “now one war after another in Africa”. Francis said that during his recent meeting last month with the President of Hungary, Viktor Orban, the Hungarian leader told him that Russia planned to end the war on May 9, when Russia celebrates its victory over Nazi Germany. “I am pessimistic,” the Pope said. “But we must make every possible effort to stop the war.”
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