Daily Journal:

Locum tenens is Metropolitan Kirill’s stellar chance. He will preside over the Council of Bishops, which will convene and determine the procedure for electing delegates to the Local Council, as well as at the Local Council itself in 2009. According to the Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church MP, the Council “elects the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' and establishes the procedure for such election.” This means that in the next six months, Bishop Kirill will be the main driver and organizer of church events at the highest level, and all discussions that will take place around the nomination of candidates for the patriarchal throne will take place under his vigilant control. The person who would temporarily lead the Church during the transition period should have been precisely a manager and a cunning politician and diplomat (Metropolitan Clement of Kaluga and Borovsk could have been in this place, but he just lacks political subtlety). From this point of view, the election of Metropolitan Kirill as locum tenens is not at all perceived as something out of the ordinary, indicating a revolution in the Church, that Metropolitan Kirill is striving for power - for the patriarchal throne.

Bishop Kirill does not have absolute support in the episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church MP (today there are 196 bishops in the Russian Orthodox Church, together with those from near and far abroad), many are afraid of his authoritarianism, politicking, conservatives criticize him for ecumenism. To what extent Metropolitan Kirill is a desirable candidate for the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation is a controversial question, but the answer to it is rather negative. Of course, among senior officials there are many who believe that the Moscow Patriarchate needs an energetic leader, a pragmatic, good organizer who will modernize the Church, make it socially active, and raise parishes to the level of socially significant organizations that can be the support of local authorities. The fading Orthodoxy must become an energetic renewed force, such officials believe. On the other hand, if Metropolitan Kirill becomes patriarch, this could cause a split in the church ranks: conservatives will be disappointed, including radical ones - supporters of Bishop Diomede, of whom there are still quite a lot within the ROC MP, as well as those who sought to make the Church more democratic. This will not happen under Metropolitan Kirill, because he himself built the current administrative system of the Moscow Patriarchate and built a far from transparent financial pyramid.

In addition, Bishop Kirill is a supporter of the idea of ​​“Russian civilization,” which is based on the denial of democracy as such, the rejection of Western civilization. Russia, Metropolitan Kirill believes, is the center of Eurasian civilization; it is characterized by conciliarity and the predominance of moral concepts over human rights. What is conciliarity instead of democracy? It turns out, based on the words of Metropolitan Kirill and his deputy, Father Vsevolod Chaplin, that this is the people’s sincere adoration of their power.

Thus, to be a locum tenens, the main associate of the future patriarch, the organizer of his election, the chairman of the Local Council is an honor and fully meets the ambitions of Metropolitan Kirill; now he is first among equals, “caliph for an hour.” However, as soon as the “tobacco” and domineering Metropolitan Kirill becomes patriarch, he will be the most criticized primate of the ROC MP in the entire history of the Church after Patriarch Sergius (Stragorodsky), who concluded an alliance between the Church and the Soviet government. After Patriarch Alexy II, the creator who was irritated by the political activity of the head of the DECR, Metropolitan Kirill will be a bright contrast - the Russian Orthodox Church will not have the image of an elder uniting all Orthodox.