An American Orthodox archbishop's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska — in which they exchanged warm greetings and gifts of holy icons — is drawing a denunciation by Ukrainian Orthodox bishops in the US.
They called it a “betrayal of Christian witness” in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Archbishop Alexei — the bishop of Alaska for the Orthodox Church in America, the now-independent offspring of the Russian Orthodox Church — met on Friday with Putin at the Fort Richardson National Cemetery in Anchorage following Putin's summit with US President Donald Trump.
Putin also placed flowers at the graves of Soviet-era airmen killed during World War II.
“Russia has given us what’s most precious of all, which is the Orthodox faith, and we are forever grateful,” Alexei told Putin, alluding to Russian missionaries who brought the faith to Alaska when it was a czarist territory. He added that he visits Russia regularly and that when his priests and seminarians go there, they report back, “I’ve been home.”
Putin told him: “Please feel at home whenever you come.”
But critics said the meeting conferred legitimacy on Putin, on top of his being hosted by Trump on US soil, despite an arrest warrant issued in 2023 by the International Criminal Court, which accused him of war crimes during Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
‘Never whitewash evil’
Severe criticism from one church's leaders, the Leaders of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA blasted the meeting between the archbishop and Putin.
“Such gestures are not merely unfortunate — they are a betrayal of the Gospel of Christ and scandalous to the faithful,” the statement said, signed by the New Jersey-based church's top two leaders, Metropolitan Antony and Archbishop Daniel.
The Russian government “is responsible for the invasion of the independent and peaceful nation of Ukraine and for the death of hundreds of thousands, for the disappearance of countless innocents, for the tearing of families apart, and for the deliberate destruction of Ukraine,” the statement said.
“To extend warm words of welcome and admiration to this ‘leader’ is nothing less than an endorsement of his actions,” it added.
The statement said that while the church preaches love and forgiveness, it “can never excuse or whitewash evil.”
Orthodox American churches clash
The meeting between the archbishop and Putin is notable in how American churches are embroiled in controversies involving Orthodoxy in Ukraine, which arose even before the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022 and have worsened since.
Orthodox Christianity is the majority religion in Russia and Ukraine.
There are multiple Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States, rooted in various immigrant communities of different nationalities. That includes Russia with the OCA and Ukraine with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA. They generally share communion and cooperate in some areas, but have separate hierarchies.
Alaska archbishop explains himself in a follow-up message emailed to Alaska priests, defending the visit.
“When I expressed gratitude in that public moment, it was not praise for present politics, but a remembrance of the missionaries of earlier generations … who brought us the Orthodox faith at great cost,” Alexei said.
Moscow Patriarch Kirill has strongly supported the war, saying Russian soldiers who die in the line of duty in Ukraine have all of their sins forgiven and presiding over a council that declared the Russian offensive a “holy war.”
Putin himself regularly displays Orthodox piety — reflected in his making the sign of the cross at the Soviet graves and kissing the icons he gave to Alexei.
Putin recently stated without elaboration that one of the conditions for peace would have to be “providing an adequate environment for the Orthodox Church and the Christian faith in Ukraine.”
