Pope Francis criticized the head of the russian Orthodox church for
justifying the war of the rf president putin against Ukraine. The pontiff said this in an interview with the newspaper Corriere della Sera.
According to Francis, it was his 40-min talk with Kirill in Zoom, and for the “first 20 min the latter had been reading from the sheet of paper a list of the reasons justifying invasion by the rf.” In the middle of the talk, the Pope asked Kirill not to get down on the level of a putin’s altar boy.
“I have listened to him and then responded: I understand nothing in this. Brother, we are not state clerics, we have to speak not the language of politics, but the language of Jesus. We are pastors of one and the same God’s sacred flock. Due to that, we have to look for a way to peace, we have to stop fighting. A Patriarch may not go down to the level of a putin’s altar boy,” the pontiff said.
On 14 June, a meeting of Pope Francis and the head of the russian Orthodox Church Kirill was appointed in Jerusalem, it was, however, canceled.
Pope Francis and the Patriarch of the russian Orthodox Church met in 2016 in Cuba. In December 2021, Francis said that he was ready to visit russia to meet Kirill.