“We must also remember that an outcome of any war is unpredictable. Can we assume that Russia won the First World War? Let’s remember the enthusiasm with which Russia entered it, what patriotic feelings accompanied the Russian Empire’s entry into this war. Could anyone then imagine that in three years Russia would collapse?”
“For all these reasons, I am deeply convinced that a war is not a method of solving the accumulated political problems.”
But Metropolitan Hilarion was later accused of failing to explicitly condemn the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
He was suspended from his post as a professor at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland in March.
Mariano Delgado, the dean of the theology faculty, said he was disappointed that Metropolitan Hilarion did “not feel able to oppose Russia’s clear violation of international law.”
He added that it was “scandalous” that Patriarch Kirill had described Russia’s war against Ukraine as a “metaphysical” struggle.
The patriarch has faced intense criticism over his stance on the war and narrowly avoided being placed on a European Union sanctions list after reported opposition from Hungary, one of the EU’s 27 member states.
Orthodox Christian media had suggested that Metropolitan Hilarion was seeking to distance himself from Patriarch Kirill in recent months.
The Russian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with an estimated 150 million members, accounting for more than half of the world’s Orthodox Christians.
Luke Coppen is CNA's former Europe editor.