I genuinely liked him, even as an atheist. He seemed to be trying his best to make the world a better place and I can't fault him for that.
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I will always applaud a person who retreats — even just a little — from dogma and fanaticism.
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/05/29/187009384/...
Which is "interesting", considering how much of the New Testament is about redemption and reaching out to outsiders. Aren’t we all supposed to be God’s creation, and wasn’t Jesus supposed to teach us about salvation, redemption and forgiveness?
(And by "interesting", I mean that it is yet another of example cognitive dissonance amongst fundamentalists. If anyone can be redeemed, it implies that atheists can, as well.)
> I will always applaud a person who retreats — even just a little — from dogma and fanaticism.
Indeed. He was not perfect but he was better than most. I hope the next one won’t be a catholic version of patriarch Kirill.
Haven't really been paying attention. Wasn't he the one who got Russia into defending persecuted Christians wherever (Syria etc)?
> From a spiritual and moral point of view, the special military operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its people, defending the single spiritual space of Holy Rus', fulfill the mission of the "Restrainer", protecting the world from the onslaught of globalism and the victory of the West that has fallen into Satanism.
> After the end of the SVO, the entire territory of modern Ukraine must enter the zone of exclusive influence of Russia. The possibility of the existence on this territory of a Russophobic political regime hostile to Russia and its people, as well as a political regime controlled from an external center hostile to Russia, must be completely excluded.
https://www-patriarchia-ru.translate.goog/db/text/6116189.ht...
(The recognition of saints is a little different, happening always after their death and depending on some degree of regional consensus. It's sloppy but whatever, it is actually not as similar as it might look.)