US archbishop's meeting with Putin denounced as 'betrayal of Christian witness'

Source: Associated Press

US archbishop’s meeting with Putin denounced as ‘betrayal of Christian witness’

By PETER SMITH
Updated 6:32 PM EDT, August 18, 2025

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 U.S. 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 Friday with Putin at the Fort Richardson National Cemetery in Anchorage following Putin’s summit with U.S. 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.”

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But critics said the meeting conferred legitimacy on Putin, on top of his being hosted by Trump on U.S. soil despite an arrest warrant issued in 2023 from the International Criminal Court, accusing Putin of war crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-putin-orthodox-dispute-alaska-archbishop-ff78301fc6131be7a783ab6fc665fb9a