Vladyka Agafangel: MP is not the Church

Metropolitan Agafangel: 

The Moscow Patriarchate is not the Church of Christ – another confirmation

Author: Metropolitan Agafangel.    Date of publication: July 14, 2025.    Category: Author's column

http://internetsobor.org/index.php/stati/avtorskaya-kolonka/mitropolit-agafangel-moskovskaya-patriarkhiya-ne-tserkov-khristova-ocherednoe-podtverzhdenie 

also see this human translation by Sbn. Nektarios

https://www.orthodoxtraditionalist.com/post/metropolitan-agathangel-on-the-moscow-patriarchate-a-repeated-confirmation-of-its-departure-from-th

Patriarch Kirill, who headed the Moscow Patriarchate, in his speech of July 12, 2025 in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, suddenly scattered with especially benesttent 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?  They couldn't.  And the Lord brought everything to what we have now."

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 destroyed to the foundation of ancient Orthodox Slavic cities and settlements 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, he 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 "to the ground" everything spiritually priceless that was on our land, then the external appearance of these values was unceremoniously appropriated to himself – Russian history, symbolism, the very name of Russia, and, 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 Filaret (Voznesensky).

In the process of its fall, the Moscow Patriarchate was reborn into an independent secular department in the structure of the state power of the Russian Federation – therefore, the Russian Federation no longer needs a government Department for Religious Affairs – its powers are now successfully exercised by the Moscow church itself. In many ways, it took over some of the functions of the Communist Party.  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 there.  All its other branches (in Estonia, Belarus, Moldova and other former Soviet republics) will also resist – not being religious organizations (like other religious organizations), but state-ideological, replacing religion.

The Church is only the True Church when it is free and speaks in its native, maternal, independent of no one but Christ, voice.  We can remember Metropolitans Philip of Moscow and Arseny (Matsevich), 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, which was especially manifested during the war with Ukraine.  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 should be sadden to state that Russian "institutional" Orthodoxy ceased to exist, first losing freedom in Christ under Metropolitan Sergius of Stragorod 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 business 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 commitment to the evil of their clergy.  May God grant all Orthodox people in Ukraine, and in the Russian Federation, "to come to the mind of Truth"!

Rule 15 of the Double Council states: 

"Those who separate themselves from communication with their primate because of some heresy condemned by the holy Councils or fathers (if he preaches heresy nationwide and openly teaches it in churches), not only are not subject to the epithymia appointed by the rules for the fact that before the conciliar resolution they protected themselves from communication with the named bishop, but also deserve the honor befith the Orthodox. And indeed, they condemned not bishops, but false bishops and false teachers and did not dissect the unity of the Church by schism, but tried to save the Church from schisms and divisions."

Based on the very spirit of this Rule, all Christians should stop all communication with Kirill Gundyaev as soon as possible, otherwise the evil that comes from him will pass to those who are in church 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 Kirill Gundyaev's actions, and in the betrayal of Judas, as well as in the actions of the traitor to the Church in the hands of the God-fighters Metropolitan Sergius of Stragorodsky, there was no heresy, but there was a retreat without heresy, which is much scarier than heresy, which often happens as a banal misconception.  But in the mentioned speech of Kirill Gundyaev there is also an undoubted heresy, when he claims that "in mosques they turn to God" – is it to Christ God?  Here's the heresy for you.

+ Metropolitan Agafangel
July 14, 2025