Excerpt from the NY Times. (Some have been saying this for decades, such as Jon R. Welker in his "The Third Rome" book - available free online pdf at archive.org):"The Russian Orthodox Leader at the Core of Putin’s AmbitionsPatriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the invasion of Ukraine, reaping vast resources for his church in return. Now, in an extraordinary step, the E.U. is threatening him with sanctions.“Kirill has in recent years aspired to expand his church’s influence, pursuing an ideology consistent with Moscow being a “Third Rome,” a reference to a 15th-century idea of Manifest Destiny for the Orthodox Church, in which Mr. Putin’s Russia would become the spiritual center of the true church after Rome and Constantinople.”Here is the NY Times link -