Patriarch Kirill has ridiculed priest Alexei Shlyapin, who said at a diocesan meeting of the Moscow Metropolitan Church that the church should focus on spiritual issues rather than patriotism. Shlyapin emphasised that the task of a priest is to lead people into the Kingdom of God, not to engage in political rhetoric. Kirill responded: ‘How great. This is the first time I've heard such a thing. And you, bishop, are you not from Western Ukraine by any chance? Go and sit down, and think seriously about all that you have said here’. Russian Orthodox church is fully mobilised at justifying all decisions of president Putin, including the aggressive war, in which it reaches the heights of dialectics to explain how the war is "peaceful". In Ukraine, the Russian Orthodox church was for decades engaged in justifying Russian colonisation of Ukraine and justified the invasion, which was the reason why it was ultimately banned.

Due to very poor quality of the audio, I was unable to generate meaningful subtitles, the statements were transcribed by Denis Kazansky.