Patriarch Kirill attends a religious service at the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, 12 September 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE / ANATOLY MALTSEV
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, claimed on Sunday that though “Christ himself suffered an undeserved execution,” he had never condemned capital punishment.
During a meeting with members of Time of Heroes, a Ukraine war veterans group, Kirill said that while the death penalty was extreme, it could be permitted as punishment for some crimes, though he did not specify which ones.
“Of course, killing a person as punishment for his crimes is an extreme measure and therefore it would be ideal for people not to commit such crimes that would be followed by the death penalty,” Kirill said, adding that if someone is “extremely dangerous to society” and if proves impossible to “isolate him, he must be removed.”
“The Lord does not say ‘kill him’, but ‘remove the evil one from among you’”, Kirill added, citing a passage from Christian scripture.
While the death penalty is still technically in use according to the country’s criminal code, Russia has maintained a moratorium on capital punishment since its introduction in 1996 as a condition for its membership in the Council of Europe, an organisation from which Russia withdrew in March 2022.
The Patriarch stressed that the Church had “never insisted on the abolition of this punishment” but whether or not the death penalty should be reintroduced depended on Russia’s crime rate.
“I would like to say that I welcome the fact that we now have a moratorium on the death penalty, and thank God for that. We must observe how this moratorium will affect the crime rate in our country. If crime decreases, then thank God, and there is no need to use the death penalty,” he said.
