Metropolitan Agathangel on the Moscow Patriarchate: A Repeated Confirmation of Its Departure from the Church of Christ

By Metropolitan Agafangel (Pashkovsky) First-Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

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Patriarch Kirill, who headed the Moscow Patriarchate, in his speech of July 12th, 2025 in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, suddenly scattered with especially servile compliments to the dictator and murderer Putin, blasphemously calling him an "Orthodox man" who: "Not some random parishioner mimicking the religion of the majority, but a church man, sincerely believing. Could we have thought and dreamed about it? We could not. And the Lord brought everything to what we have now."

Metropolitan Agafangel

Lord, have mercy on us who read these blasphemous words! - more than a million killed and maimed innocent people (many of whom were Orthodox), many ancient Orthodox Slavic cities and settlements destroyed to their foundation along with their temples and shrines, the cult of war and mass murder, the persecution of those who dare to simply speak out against the war. And all this by the will of one dictator and his entourage, and with the blessing of the patriarch of the MP! In Russia, they used to say: "God, if he wants to punish a person, takes away his mind." Regarding the actions of Kirill Gundyaev and his associates, we can say: "The devil, wanting to destroy a person, drowns out his conscience." Patriarch Kirill, hypocritically surprised by the "revival" of Orthodoxy in the Russian Federation, asks: “How so? Did the old ladies who remained believers break the power of the superpower?

Why did the atheistic regime collapse overnight?" The thing is that the God-fighting regime did not collapse, but only mimicked it externally without internal repentance. Having destroyed everything spiritually priceless that was on our land, then it appropriated the external appearance of these values - Russian history, symbolism, the very name “Russian", and, the Holy of Holies, - the Orthodox Church. Having destroyed, eradicating the true Church, replacing it with a Stalinist false church, which only externally is a church, and inside - the obscenity and abomination of desolation - as has always been pointed out by many prominent representatives of the ROCOR, including the Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin and our holy First Hierarch Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky).

The Moscow Patriarchate, in the process of its fall, has now been reborn into an all-powering independent department in the structure of the state secular power of the Russian Federation - therefore, the Russian Federation no longer needs a government Department of Religious Affairs - its powers were completely assumed by the Moscow Church. To some extent, it adopted some functions of the Communist Party as an ideological organization. Ceasing to be the Church of Christ, it became a "secular church". That's why the branch of this Russian government organization in Ukraine resists so stubbornly here. How will all its other branches (in Estonia, Belarus, Moldova and other former Soviet republics) resist - not being religious organizations (like other religious organizations), but state-ideological.

The Church is only the True Church when it is free and speaks in its native, maternal voice, independent of no one but Christ. We can remember Metropolitans Philip of Moscow and Arseny (Matseevich), Patriarch Nikon and the last All-Russian Patriarch Tikhon - this is the authentic voice of the Russian Church, which was not afraid to tell the truth to Christ in the face of civil power (and suffered from this power), a voice that is fundamentally different from subservience and servility before evil, which comes from the current leadership of the MP. The Moscow false church now speaks exclusively in the voice of the Kremlin tyrant Putin, blasphemously passing it off as the voice of Christ Himself.

Looking at what is happening, it is sad to state that Russian "institutional" Orthodoxy has ceased to exist, first losing freedom in Christ under Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky and finally ceasing its spiritual existence under Kirill Gundyaev. Unfortunately, the Moscow Patriarchate no longer has forces capable of returning to Christ this once part of the Russian Church, which has now become a servile political institution serving the criminal power "not out of fear, but out of conscience".

Of course, even in Ukraine, the current authorities are hostile to Orthodoxy in their unwillingness to return to the beginnings of the Orthodox Ukrainian Hetmanate, although its presidents swear on the Gospel and accept the hetman's mace, but this remains, unfortunately, only external attributes, without any internal content. The last Orthodox Ukrainian Hetman Pavel Skoropadsky was overthrown, and unfortunately, there is no one to revive his activity here. But the authorities in Ukraine, it must be admitted, do not try to get into the human soul and dictate, as the Soviet authorities did and do, and therefore the non-political Church of Christ is much freer here than in the Russian Federation. Now, in the conditions of war, supporters and "co-workers" of war criminal Kirill Gundyaev, who blesses mass murders and violence in Ukraine, are being persecuted. It can't be otherwise, and it shouldn't be. It is a pity that the authorities in Ukraine do not distinguish between supporters of the current politicized Moscow false patriarch and ordinary believers who are sincerely innocent and think they suffer for their faith. Unfortunately, they suffer not for the Orthodox faith, but for adherence to the evil of their clergy. May God grant all Orthodox people in Ukraine, and in the Russian Federation, "to come to the understanding of the truth"!

Canon 15 of the First and Second Council states: "Those who separate themselves from communion with their primate because of some heresy condemned by the holy Councils or fathers (if he preaches heresy publicly and openly teaches it in churches), not only are not subject to the epitimia appointed by the canons for the fact that before the conciliar resolution they protected themselves from communication with the named bishop, but also deserve the honor befitting the Orthodox. And indeed, they condemned not bishops, but false bishops and false teachers and did not cleave the unity of the Church by schism, but tried to save the Church from schisms and divisions."

Based on the very spirit of this Canon, all Christians should stop all communion with Kirill Gundyaev as soon as possible, otherwise the evil that comes from him will pass to those who are in ecclesiastical unity with him, that is, to all who are in Eucharistic communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.

If someone thinks that there is no heresy in the actions of Kirill Gundyaev—then there was no heresy in the betrayal of Judas, just as there was none in the actions of the traitor to the Church into the hands of the God-fighters, Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky; rather, there was apostasy from God without heresy, which is much more frightening than heresy, which often occurs as a banal delusion. But in the aforementioned speech of Kirill Gundyaev there is also undeniable heresy, when he asserts that "in mosques they turn to God"—is it to Christ God? There is your heresy."

What has been said about the Moscow Patriarchate also applies to the entire so-called “world Orthodoxy.” If the Moscow church has completely compromised Russian Orthodoxy, then Constantinople has compromised the rest of Orthodoxy, competing with Moscow. Even the hope for a common revival of Orthodoxy has dried up, since there are no spiritually authoritative people wholly devoted to Christ who are worthy to unite the remaining believers around themselves. And even if such a person were to suddenly appear, the patriarchal and state apparatus in power would not allow him to gain sufficient influence over the people, just as the chief priests and Pharisees prevented Christ from leading the people after Him.

In the process of its fall, the Moscow Patriarchate has transformed into an independent secular department within the structure of the Russian Federation’s state power — which is why the Russian Federation no longer needs a governmental Department for Religious Affairs, since its powers are now successfully performed by the Moscow church itself. In many ways, it has taken over some functions of the Communist Party. Having ceased to be the Church of Christ, it has become a “secular church.” Therefore, the branch of this Russian governmental organization in Ukraine resists so stubbornly there. Likewise, all its other branches (in Estonia, Belarus, Moldova, and other former Soviet republics) will resist — being not religious organizations (like other religious organizations), but rather state-ideological entities that substitute for religion.

+ Metropolitan Agafangel

July 14, 2025