Unfortunately religion is about control of the people. He knows this far better than any religious person.
The Old Testament contains numerous examples of that. Religion was used to get men to commit uncontrolled murder and mayhem against others because "God" commanded them to do it. And when someone, like Saul, showed even a little mercy he pissed the God character off. It's like what the Spanish Catholics did to the Aztecs and Incas. They used their religion as a get out of hell free card to commit all kinds of barbaric acts against the indigenous peoples.
I hope not. Especially not the rapes, not a necessary part of warfare. And some of them targeted children, which meant they were animals to begin with. 😡
@bijouxbroussard yeah, bijoux...I'm an incurable animal lover. I too have called these "people" , animals. But, i was doing sooo often. I though...hmmm...animals are innocent. Monsters, not so much🙂
Kiril probably doesn't even know it's happening. Or if he does will, like Putin, claim the reports are Western lies. Either way he will not care.
How did he survive the USSR to become Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church? He was one of the ROC's representatives to the World Council of Churches, and reported it and any other potentially useful information about it and its people, to the KGB.
In his view, very probably - or at least he just ignores those even if he believes any reports of them that might reach him. If they reach him at all: the Kremlin has so clamped down on communications and so distorted the situation that Kiril might hear only very watered-down versions, if any.
The Patriarch Kiril thinks it a "holy" war, or rather "special military operation" though.
In USSR days Kiril was not only the Russian Orthodox Church's official representative to the World Council of Churches. He was the KGB's eyes and ears there.
@tindrummer I have found that the nature of church is beyond their comprehension since it is spiritually based and the kingdom was not based of the earth. Forgiveness is very deep and it looks like they are trying to develop a form of penance and not forgiveness. It is so easy to get the two confused if your background in Christianity is not that thorough.
@tindrummer Patton said, and i paraphrase, nobody ever won a war by dying for his country, wars are won by making the other poor bastard die for his country.