MOSCOW — As Vladimir Putin prepared to return to the Kremlin for a third term of office in 2012, Patriarch Kirill, the powerful head of the Russian Orthodox Church, described the ex-KGB officer’s rule as a “miracle of God.”
The patriarch’s comments, made during a pre-election televised meeting with Putin, were a stark illustration, critics said at the time, of the erosion of the separation of church and state, as stipulated by Russia’s much-abused post-Soviet constitution. Over the following years, Putin, who professes a deep Orthodox belief, would shift to ultra-conservatism, positioning himself as a defender of traditional Christian values.
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Source:: European Voice
