Russian Patriarch Kirill: A Case of Religion Overreaching

The political separation of “Church and State” in U.S. constitutional law, a doctrine that is of jurisprudence (judicial decision) rather than theology and thus does not straddle and therefore demarcate the political and religious domains as qualitatively distinct from a neutral standpoint. Furthermore, the question of what makes the religious domain distinct (and unique) from all others is the pole from which a religious functionary’s (or religionist) leap into the political garden from the Garden of Eden can be detected. The trouble worsens if the criteria from one domain in imposed and overlaid in the overreaching into another domain, as if the criteria that is determinative in one domain were valid in another. In fact, the eclipsing itself of the other’s own criteria on their own “turf” is unethical. The legitimate sovereignty of a domain’s own criteria in that domain over criteria indigenous to other domains yet superimposed renders any supervening overreaching as both erroneous—as in going off-sides in football (soccer)—and unethical because the criteria indigenous to a given domain should not be disrespected within their own domain. In other words, encroaching is presumptuous. If these ideas strike the reader as novel, even strange perhaps, then I am keeping within the confines of my mission in writing, as I look to a new dawn in which the ideational tyranny of hitherto reigning yet questionable assumptions ist zerstört because they have been discredited, which is not to say that every extant assumption should be eviscerated and expunged for lack of substance. Unfortunately, Russia’s Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, went out on a tree limb, far from his religious tree’s trunk, by formulating and spreading “revisionist propaganda to justify the war in Ukraine” while the invasion was underway.[1] The history and legitimacy of a bygone Russian empire (not the U.S.S.R.) properly belong to the political rather than to the religious domain. Being schooled in theology does not give even a high religious functionary the knowledge on which to presume to be an expert in political history and international relations. The resentment in the E.U. and U.S. at the patriarch’s intrusion into a domain that is not an extension of the religious domain was not merely from opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also from an intuitive sense that the domains of religion/theology and politics/government are distinct and thus require different knowledge-sets and have their own respective criteria and distinctiveness.

The full essay is at "Russian Patriarch Kirill."

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Oil, Cod, Kirill: Friction Points Emerge in New E.U. Sanctions Against Russia,” Euronews.com, 26 June, 2026.

Starmer Resigns as British Prime Minister: A Post-Mortem

Two years after winning in a landslide, with his Labour group being given its largest majority in Parliament in decades, PM Starmer found himself polling as the least favored PM on record and was forced by the political reality of his political group to resign. Why? I contend that the actual reason, behind and obfuscated by the headlines, is rather basic, or fundamental.

Unlike Tony Blair, Starmer did not join an unpopular foreign war, and unlike Boris Johnson, Starmer did not hold parties during a pandemic. Neither did Starmer ruin an economy; the secession of the E.U. state of Britain could be blamed for that. According to CNN, Starmer’s “missteps were more mundane: an attempt to make wealthier pensioners pay more to heat their homes; a plan to cut some benefits to disabled people; accepting freebies; and, . . . a scandal over his appointment of Jeffrey Epstein-linked politician Peter Mandelson to the role of UK ambassador.”[1] Even though such policy “missteps alone cannot explain Starmer’s fall,” according to CNN, the American media company conveniently ignores a glaring, and perhaps the glaring, reason for Starmer’s stunning unpopularity.

It turns out that Starmer, who is Jewish, exploited a personal conflict of interest not only in standing up for Israel as it cut off power and water in Gaza, but also in having pro-Gaza protesters in Britain arrested as if they were aiding and abetting terrorists. Enabling a holocaustic genocide and impairing democracy at home are damning moves that the American media company utterly ignores in its post-mortem of Starmer. The combination of defending an apartheid state engaged in decimating Gazan cities and treating protesting British citizens as criminals rather than as heroes for standing up for other people’s human rights resulted in the prime minister falling like a rock in a pond in terms of popularity. When John Kennedy was campaigning for the U.S. presidency in 1960, not a few Americans feared that he, a Roman Catholic, would do the bidding of a foreign state—Vatican City—at the expense of American interests. The fear turned out to be overblown, but Starmer’s unfettered defense of Israel as it was destroying populated cities in Gaza arguably evinces the exploitation of a personal conflict of interest because Starmer is Jewish. This is not to say that every Jew is a Zionist. Noam Chomsky, for example, publicly stated that Israel no longer had the right to exist. U.S. Sen. Burnie Sanders lambasted Israel for its crimes against humanity. In utter contrast, Starmer was ignoring international law abroad and democratic principles of free speech at home. This is why he was forced out by his own political group. That CNN is silent on this rather obvious point speaks volumes about the relationship between giant American media companies and American foreign policy.

 

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1. Christian Edwards, “Why Is Starmer Resigning, Two Years after Winning in a Landslide,” CNN.com, June 22, 2026.