Further to the Moscow Patriarch's taking a page from Putin with his Mob Boss call of condolence in the
aftermath of the destruction.
Having toured the Kremlin and understood for the first time, really, the traditional ties extant between Russia and Persia, I'm certainly willing to concede the VERY SLIGHT possibility some ancient connection -- a la that they had with their Serbian brothers? -- is kicking in among the ex-intel sorts who manage the State Religion in Russia.
But, absent some precedent on which to rely in trusting this is so (I'll be hunting around, trust me), I think Alexy II's with the Program where this continuing triangulation of the People of the Book's concerned.
Holy War my ass. Illumined Muslim insurgents are no more representative of Islam than the "former Soviet"-sponsored IRA is of Catholicism. And the destruction of Christian churches in this war does not differ in any essential fashion for me from the Allied destruction of Dresden or our annihilation of the center of Japanese Christianity at the otherwise non-strategic target that was Nagasaki.
Having worshipped in churches in both Ukraine and Russia and pored over every detail of the Remaking of Russian Religion at Sts. Peter & Paul (particularly the display of Yeltsin at the canonization of the Romanovs and the geneology of Russia's relation to decadent English), I think I can tell the difference between a devout Granny and an Operator. Just about any faithful Catholic attuned to the revolution within the Church (and, particularly, its longtime penetration by the Enlightened), can do the same.
I'd like to pretend it was a joy to find a little card table of pro-life literature tucked in a corner of Alexy's cavernous cathedral. But when the State posts anti-abortion placards in the cars of the Metro, it's hard to pretend it's the Orthodox Church which is spearheading the right to life in Russia given the birthrate crisis the Government faces despite its overwhelmingly generous incentives for women -- married or not -- to reproduce.