According to the outlet, the court hearing took place on 11 May.

The members of the court voted unanimously.

At the beginning of February, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow personally banned the priest from performing services.

The reason for the decision was a denunciation from the parishioners, who did not like that the priest had replaced the word "victory" with the word "peace" in the Holy Rus prayer, which the patriarch had previously given his blessing to read in all Orthodox churches.

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One comment was that Pope Francis should correct and, if necessary, punish some German bishops.

Müller was referring to those who have approved "heretical texts" and "proposals directly against the Catholic faith". These proposals include offering church blessings to homosexual couples.

"I think there should be a canonical process" [against them], he claimed.

"Collegiality exists, but there is also the primacy [of the pope], and canonically the pope has the responsibility to ask for an explanation, to correct and — in extreme cases — to dismiss bishops for doctrinal questions.

"They say the understanding of doctrine can develop, but we cannot develop revelation."

God can't bless two persons of the same sex who love each other with fidelity, he said.

"To bless homosexual couples is blasphemy."

James Martin SJ, whose pastoral ministry to LGBT persons also copped Müller's disapproval.

Müller thinks Francis - well known for supporting LGBT people - should tell Martin not to "instrumentalise" him.

Another topic was the Petrine ministry.

Müller agrees with Francis on this matter - that the Petrine ministry is "for life".

He remarked that earlier in his pontificate Francis agreed with Benedict XVI and said he had "opened the door" to popes resigning.

The war in Russia and the role religion is playing was another hot topic.

Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow is a good theologian, Müller said.

"But it is not possible to justify this war [against Ukraine] with the words of Jesus, as Putin has done. Furthermore, the idea of the Great Russia is absurd."

Kirill should criticise Russian president Vladimir Putin, the cardinal said - "but that would be his end".

Orthodox bishops in Russia have been subject to the state since Peter the Great, Müller noted. But we must not justify evil, he added.

He said Francis "is right to maintain contacts" with Russia "in this difficult moment," but "the position of the church is not to justify what the emperors do".

Asked why in the past he had criticised Francis for sometimes causing doctrinal "confusion" Müller said, "Francis ... cannot change, revealed doctrine, but the task of the Supreme Pontiff is not only to avoid causing confusion but also to deny such [things]".

As to whether he thinks some popes who are saints today may have given up on holiness to some degree when it came to governing the church, Müller said:

"I cannot judge those who have been already canonised because that is an act of infallibility, but the fame of sanctity comes from the people not from ecclesiastical authority."

Despite saying he wouldn't criticise the pope, Müller seems to disagree with Francis's decision to dispense with the need for a miracle for John XXIII's canonisation, saying that decision was "too political".

He concluded by denouncing the recent criticism of St John Paul II for allegedly covering up the abuse of minors by priests.

The political intent was to damage Catholicism in Poland "by decapitating the most important figure," he said.

Source

• America Magazine

The most recent call came from former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams, after Patriarch Kirill of Moscow praised his country's armed forces and claimed they were acting in line with the gospel and Christian teaching.

The case for expelling "is a strong one, and I have a suspicion that some other Orthodox Churches would take the same view" the former archbishop says.

Williams, who speaks Russian and is an expert on Orthodoxy, says many in the Orthodox world feel that Orthodoxy itself is compromised.

"The riot act has to be read.

"When a Church is actively supporting a war of aggression, failing to condemn nakedly obvious breaches in any kind of ethical conduct in wartime, then other Churches have the right to raise the question and challenge it — to say, unless you can say something effective about this, something recognisably Christian, we have to look again at your membership."

He says he cannot accept the use of Christian terminology to justify "a nakedly aggressive, unprincipled act of violence against a neighbouring Christian nation".

"I'm still waiting for any senior voices in the Russian Orthodox hierarchy to say the slaughter of the innocent in war is condemned unequivocally by all forms of Christianity," he says.

"I feel rather devastated that the current leadership of the Church is in danger of betraying everything most precious in what Russian Christianity has given to the wider world: the saints, the witnesses, the hugely complex and enriching history in spirituality, art and literature. All of that is being tarmacked over by this extraordinary and almost obsessive nationalist fervour."

Other Christian Church leaders are even more blunt in their views on Kirill's behaviour.

The leader of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Epiphany Dumenko, says Kirill has "made his choice in favour of the Antichrist. . .

"I urge those who still have him as their shepherd: open your eyes ... and do not be his accomplices."

The US-based Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute has accused Kirill of turning President Putin's "military campaign into a religious war". It has been urging the World Council of Churches to prevent Russian Orthodox leaders from "using Christianity as a cover for mass murder".

What Kirill needs to do

Williams says the "minimum" to be expected is for Kirill and others to "press for an effective and credible ceasefire". The Patriarch is "answerable to Jesus Christ" for the Orthodox Ukrainians being "killed by other members of his own flock", he notes.

The former archbishop's wish seems unlikely to be granted however. Kirill has been urging Russians at Mass to pray for "multiplying the power of our armed forces" and reminding soldiers of "the historical importance of the present moment".

Those caught up in the Ukraine war were "peoples of Holy Russia", he says.

Source

• Church Times