[Mrs. Don-o]

It makes me think the charge is at least partly true, that Patriarch Kirill is --- principally --- a licensed liturgist for the Russian State.

I don't mean this too disrespect Orthodoxy. I would be delighted to be proved wrong. Somebody please prove me wrong.

[NRx]

There is a long history in Orthodoxy of close relations between church and state. In Russia this was particularly the case under the czars. Most of the time it was not a problem. But when it was, the church’s witness suffered for it.

The Church is a divine institution run by fallible men. Another long tradition in the Orthodox Church is a certain healthy skepticism about, and occasionally contempt for, our hierarchs. Unlike in the Western tradition it is not at all unusual for Orthodox bishops to get called out by the laity when they stray too far off the reservation. I think perhaps in the current crisis in the Catholic Church we may be seeing something of a revival of that spirit in the West.