The Scandalous Silence of Moscow's Patriarch

Let us be clear, what Vladimir Putin has declared isn't a just war, it's just war. All the more reason, therefore, for the one person uniquely positioned to be a lever for peace, and leaven of justice, to act. That person is Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, and his silence to date is a scandal. The role of the patriarch in Putin's architecture of aggression is critical. For Westerners long accustomed to separation of church and state, the Russian arrangement can seem an anachronous quirk. It's not.