EU Targets Head Of Russian Orthodox Church With Sanctions

What is there left to sanction in Russia? Apparently the European Union still sees plenty of opportunity to punish Russia over the Ukraine war, and is set to go after even religious leaders, now in year five of the conflict and many sanctions packages later.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, is among many names to be targeted in the EU’s latest anti-Moscow sanctions proposal. Kirill has long been accused of justifying the war based on his several patriotic-themed sermons over the years.

Brussels first tried to impose individual sanctions on the patriarch in 2022, but Hungary under PM Viktor Orban had exercised veto power over the move.

The sanctions would involve travel bans and an asset freeze, as has already happened with Kremlin officials and notables.

Kirill has at times utilized language in public that frames Putin’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine as a ‘holy war’; however, some sympathetic pundits especially in the Orthodox Church world have said these are simple calls to patriotism and defense of the ‘motherland’ or homeland - a common mindset among most religions and nationalities. 

American politicians and other church leaders in the US have taken swipes at Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church – and yet it must be recalled that in the lead-up to Bush’s disastrous 2003 Iraq invasion, since proven to have been based on lies, propaganda, and falsehoods – an overwhelming number of prominent Evangelical and Baptist leaders supported it as a somehow ‘righteous’ or ‘godly’ regime change mission.

The Russian Orthodox Church has of late been especially angry that the Ukrainian government under Zelensky has been seizing churches and historic monasteries in Ukraine which still hold communion with Moscow.

In some cases, Orthodox bishops in Ukraine have been arrested simply for not severing spiritual ties with Kirill. This has happened even when bishops, monks, or priests – who find themselves targeted by Ukrainian authorities – don’t support Russia’s war.

And yet, the EU has remained largely silent on Ukraine’s own abuses, and using religion to foster nationalism and conformity to a political agenda.

Moscow has long highlighted this hypocrisy, also as Orthodox Christian clergy in the United States have of late lobbied Congress to demand that Kiev overturn its discriminatory laws which target Orthodox leaders in Ukraine.