Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya), the spokesman for the Kyiv Metropolia of the OCU, told in an exclusive interview with TSN.ua who Patriarch Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church really are.
When asked by the host how to assess Kirill's blessing of Russia's war of conquest against Ukraine, Archbishop Yevstratiy replied:
"It is necessary to understand and treat the Russian Orthodox Church and its head Kirill Gundyaev in such a way that it is part of the state apparatus of the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, the Russian Orthodox Church is a managed structure that was de facto created on Stalin's instructions in 1943. And the actual management of the Church, as it was laid down under the Stalinist Soviet Union, with a certain modification, remains to this day. It was not an invention of Stalin or his henchmen to create such a church. It was a way to reflect the interaction of church-state architecture that existed back in the days of the Moscow Tsardom and the Russian Empire. This is not just a statement from a religious figure. This is the position of the Religious Department of the Kremlin's current administration. Therefore, we are not surprised by the statements of Kirill, Lavrov, Zakharova or Peskov. These are all different heads of one multi-headed Russian monster. If one of them is dressed in a patriarchal doll, it does not mean that it is different from all the others."