Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has called on the primates of the local Orthodox churches to stand up in defense of the Orthodox believers in Ukraine.
“As far back as last autumn when the present political crisis in
Ukraine just began, representatives of the Greek Catholic Church and
schismatic communities, who appeared in the Kiev Maidan, openly preached
hatred towards the Orthodox Church, calling to seize Orthodox shrines
and to eradicate Orthodoxy from the territory of Ukraine,” Patriarch
Kirill said in a letter to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople,
which is available on the Moscow Patriarchate’s website.
“With the beginning of hostilities, the Uniates [Greek Catholics] and
schismatics, having been given arms, under the pretext of antiterrorist
operation, began an outright aggression against the clergy of the
canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the east of the country,”
Patriarch Kirill’s letter says.
“The Uniates and schismatics linked up with them seek to gain the
upper hand over the canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine, while the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church continues with patience and courage to take pastoral
care of her suffering faithful in this very difficult situation. Most of
the clergy who serve in places that have become arenas for hostilities
have remained with their flock, sharing with them all the terrors of
civil war,” he said.
