Kirill, the Patriarch in league with Putin | The Spectator

Illustration: John Broadley
Until very recently, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, was most famous for being the owner of a phantom wristwatch. It had the magical property of disappearing from sight, visible to onlookers only as a reflection.
Don’t believe me? Google ‘Kirill’ and ‘watch’ and you’ll find a photo of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ meeting the Russian justice minister. It was taken in 2009, the year Kirill succeeded the late Patriarch Alexy II as spiritual leader of 110 million Russian Orthodox Christians.
On his head Kirill is wearing a white koukoulion, the so-called ‘helmet of salvation’, with side flaps like the ears of a giant basset hound. But his cassock is plain black and his wrist is bare. Only the polished table reveals the glimmer of his phantom wristwatch, a £20,000 Swiss Breguet.
With that sort of price tag, you’d have thought the Russian Orthodox could afford a better class of Photoshopper. At any rate, the humiliated …