Vladimir Putin Is All of the Bad Guys in the Bible, Pretty Much, Says Ukrainian Patriarch

Vladimir Putin is possessed by the devil — according to a Ukrainian cleric.

Patriarch Filaret. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin / Facebook)

Patriarch Filaret, the leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, posted a statement on Friday in which he compared the Russian president to Cain (as in, the Biblical character who murdered his brother Abel) and said he was possessed by Satan:

With great regret I have to say now publicly that among the rulers of this world upon the fact of baptism, belonging to the Orthodox Church, appeared a real new Cain - not by name, but by deeds.

These matters indicate that the abovementioned governor as the first in the history fratricide Cain, came under the action of Satan.

...

He says outright and blatant lies: organizing and sending killers mercenaries to our country, speaks of "internal conflict", to which he allegedly is not involved; sending to Ukraine his troops, he publicly states that these forces are not present there. At the time when in Ukraine the perished soldiers, defenders of the Fatherland are buried as heroes, the soldiers of his country, who died in the Donbas, are buried secretly, carefully concealing the truth about the circumstances of their death.

This ruler is cynically lying, saying that his country is not a party to the conflict in Ukraine - although he did everything in order to foment the conflict and maintain it.

Patriarch Filaret never mentioned Putin by name, but he heaped a few more Biblical comparisons on the Russian leader, saying "satan went into him, as into Judas Iscariot," and "his heart became cruel, as the heart of the ancient Pharaoh."

The patriarch called on Ukrainians to pray for Putin's conversion, and not to fear his earthly power.

As the Wire noted, Patriarch Filaret leads the Kiev Patriarchate, a branch of the Orthodox Church that split from Moscow in 1992 as the Soviet Union collapsed.

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