In Moscow, Patriarch Kirill celebrates Orthodox Easter with Putin and Elon Musk’s father

On Easter night in Moscow, Patriarch Kirill publicly thanked not God, but Vladimir Putin, in front of an audience of oligarchs and politicians, and beside them sat Errol Musk, Elon Musk’s father. It seems like a surreal scene: instead of delivering a traditional homily, Russia’s highest religious authority transforms the liturgy into a celebration of a political leader, while the father of the richest man in the world attends as a guest of honor. And here comes the twist: we often think of religion as the last bastion against the merging of spiritual and political power, but in Russia, Easter has become a spectacle of mutual legitimization between Church and State, where faith serves to strengthen the consensus around power. Patriarch Kirill, internationally isolated and at odds with the Patriarch of Constantinople, addressed Putin with these words: “As President of our country, you have carried out many actions that will go down in history as acts of benevolence and of the utmost importance for our Fatherland. However, the return of the sacred icons, on your initiative, will be associated with your name in the history of both the State and the Russian Orthodox Church.” And here is the detail that is causing controversy: the country's two most venerated icons, the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God and the Don Icon of the Mother of God, were transferred from state museums to the cathedral on Putin's orders, despite protests from museum directors and civil society, who were concerned that they might be damaged. For Kirill, however, their spiritual value surpasses their artistic value: “Being kept in a museum protected them from destruction, but not from desecration: they lost their essential meaning, which goes beyond any artistic value.” All this took place before the eyes of key figures in Russian power: Anna Kuznetsova, who espouses pseudoscientific theories about women and motherhood; Leonid Slutsky, a politician accused of harassment; Dmitry Mezentsev, who was involved in the deportation of Ukrainian minors; and Vladimir Yakunin, a former KGB officer and oligarch with a €60 million mansion who organizes the annual transport of the Holy Fire from Jerusalem to Moscow. And while the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope in Rome called for peace in their Easter homilies, Kirill chose to remain silent on the war in Ukraine, preferring to emphasize the Easter truce and the cooperation between Church and State. The propaganda went so far as to show videos of Easter cakes delivered by drones to soldiers on the front lines, while the liturgy became a staging of national and religious unity under the president's blessing. But here is a question that no one is asking: In a country where religion is bent to political consensus, what remains of faith? And what meaning does it hold for believers to see their liturgy used as a stage for power? Perhaps, outside of Russia, the real news is not so much the presence of Elon Musk's father as the fact that, once again, religion is proving to be a tremendously powerful tool for legitimizing power, even when it should be a critical or at least independent voice. In the end, Orthodox Easter in Moscow illustrates how, in times of war, the Church can become the mouthpiece of the state, while elsewhere, people pray for peace. Political power is always looking for a pulpit from which to speak—and it often finds one. If this story resonates with you, on Lara Notes you can tap I'm In — it's not a like; it's your way of saying, This idea is now mine. And if tomorrow you tell someone that during Russian Easter, the patriarch thanked Putin instead of God, on Lara Notes you can mark that conversation with Shared Offline: it's the gesture that certifies it as important. This story comes from Le Grand Continent and saved you almost 8 minutes compared to reading the original article.