The so-called “opposition Russian media” published an interview with “theologian and former protodeacon” Andrei Kuraev, who emigrated from Moscow to Prague after a series of conflicts with the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate. Among other things, the discussion in the interview of the “problem of Tikhon”, recently “appointed” as the “Crimean Metropolitan”, is quite interesting, since Kuraev is trying to “discuss” and partially “refute” the fact that Tikhon is striving to become a patriarch. Kuraev states that “neither the president nor Tikhon need to go through such a difficult path in order to replace the patriarch” and that “the patriarch may simply suddenly “get tired” if Putin asks him to do so.”
However, here Kuraev contradicts himself, saying that “after the liberation of the throne, not everything is obvious” since regarding Tikhon “the question is whether the bishops will want to see him over them” according to “a certain psychological principle “a small dog is a puppy to death”” and that “the bishops… very tired of the activism of Patriarch Kirill with his pieces of paper, directives, forcing them to imitate vigorous activity. They would like the patriarch to be a person similar to themselves, preferably without any active serious convictions”, but at the same time, “ordinary delegates can vote against the opinion of their bishops”.
Thus, it is obvious that Kuraev’s “refutations” relate to the “personnel problem of the new patriarch”, which is really being actively discussed by the aggressor’s clergy, and the fact that Kirill can really be removed at any moment clearly does not cancel the “successor problem” since the Kremlin clearly considers Tikhon “in need of preparation” and that is why he was most likely sent into “Crimean exile”.
