Wherever there is truth, there will be Satan's attempts to pervert obfuscate and obliterate it. And he wins when the corruption grows so great that no one can see the truth because the acts of evil by the men who should be promoting it, become acts that abandon it.
What's happening with SOME very prominent leaders (we can't condemn those who aren't part of it) in the Russian Church today (and has been happening for a while) reminds me, albeit in a much different context, for why many Christians in the 3rd century, left the places where the Church was growing in influence, to go live in the desert. They didn't want to be corrupted by the corruption that comes when Christianity is involved with politics, and those in positions of leadership begin to allow their love for Christ to be be transferred to love of money.
No one is worthy of leading or representing Christians who isn't willing to abandon all, even if it means being martyred, to know Jesus. And that's easy for me to say, I realize. I hope if it ever becomes necessary to do, that my actions will make my words prove I wasn't a hypocrite. God have mercy on any of us, if we ever are faced with a circumstance that might require such a stand ourselves.
(On a personal note, if nothing else, it just makes me more determined never to desire a position of leadership. I know I'm weak. But I don't want to have to find out how weak. And if I ever do need to encounter it, then my hope is that I will allow God's strength to overcome my weakness)
Back to the reason for this post: If many of the current leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church don't want to forever be judged with harsh condemnation they now deserve to be judged with, then they need to repent, condemn and denounce Putin, in the same way men born 100 years earlier in Russia dealt with another similar type of man, when they stood against Stalin.
But power and prestige corrupt. They always have and always will--both in the world, and sadly (as always when it is so apparent) in the Church.
How Putin Uses Russian Orthodoxy to Grow His Empire