Source: Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate
14.08.2014 19:55
Being deeply concerned over the situation in eastern Ukraine,
where a fratricidal civil war has been going on for already seven
months, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia sent
messages to the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches, asking them to
pray for the peace in the Ukrainian land. The Primate of the Russian
Orthodox Church also called the heads of the Local Orthodox Churches to
raise their voice in defence of Orthodox Christians in the east of
Ukraine, who, in a situation of violence on the part of the Greek
Catholics and schismatics, live in everyday fear for themselves and
their loved ones.
Given below is the message to His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.
Your Holiness,
Beloved in the Lord Brother and Concelebrant:
I wholeheartedly greet you wishing you peace, blessed physical strength and God’s inexhaustible help in your primatial ministry.
I am impelled to address myself to you with this letter by the
feeling of profound pain and extreme concern for the situation of our
Church’s flock in eastern Ukraine, where a fratricidal civil war has
continued for already several months now.
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. With the
beginning of hostilities, the Uniates 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.
At the same time, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, unlike the
Greek-Catholics and schismatics, remains alien to any political
commitment. She continues taking pastoral care of her numerous flock,
which includes those who have found themselves on the opposite sides of
the conflict, seeking to reconcile them and tirelessly calling them to
dialogue.
In recent weeks we have received from local hierarchs reports
attesting to outrage committed against the clergy of the canonical
Ukrainian Orthodox Church and to the purposeful persecution against
them. Here are some examples:
On July 17, 2014, during the Divine Liturgy at the church of the
Resurrection in the city of Slavyansk, a group of armed men led by a
Greek Catholic military chaplain burst in the church and began
threatening the rector of the church, Archpriest Vitaly Vesyoly. A
representative of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church declared that
there was no room in Ukraine for the Moscow Patriarchate and complained
that the president of the country did not allow the Uniates to seize the
Kiev Laura of the Caves.
On July 19, the dean of the Nikolaevsky District of the diocese of
Gorlovka, Archpriest Andrey Chicherinda, was insulted and interrogated
with handcuffs put on his hands and under the threat of murder.
On July 20, near Slavyansk, people armed with submachine guns forced
Archpriest Vadim Yablonovsky to dig a grave for himself. On the same
day, Archpriest Viktor Stratovich was handcuffed and, with a sack on his
head, driven into forest, where he was forced to his knees and
interrogated in this position.
On July 30, at the Krasnokamenskoe village near Donetsk, a similar
group of armed people carried out an illegal search in the house of
Archpriest Igor Sergienko, rector of the church of the Holy Prince
Alexander Nevsky. The priest was abused, accused of participation in the
work of underground organizations, threatened with torture, called to
leave the territory of Ukraine and to issue a title to the church fixing
the right to the church property.
On the same day, at the Amvrosievsky District of Donetsk Region, the
Ukrainian military detained Archpriest Yevgeny Podgorny. His hands were
tired and with obscenities heaped upon him he was knocked off and beat
up and kicked with feet and butts. They shoot over his head, trying to
force him into admitting that he helped the militia. The archpriest was
forced to put off his priestly cross, but when he refused they tore it
off, put him in a pit with a sack on his head and threaten to kill his
son. His house was looted. The priest was set free only thanks to the
interference of parishioners.
We cannot ignore the fact that the conflict in Ukraine has an
unambiguous religious cause underlying it. 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. Their families are
suffering from attacks and lack of water and food and dying under
artillery shelling. Thus, on July 31, Archpriest Vladimir Kreslyansky
was wounded and later died after a shelling of residential quarters in
Lugansk. The priest has left a wife and five children.
Eastern Ukraine, a blossoming land inhabited by millions of
industrious Orthodox Christians, is turning into a scorched field. The
residence of Metropolitan Hilarion of Donetsk and Mariupol has been
destroyed by bombing. A bombshell has ruined and burned out the Iveron
Convent of the diocese of Donetsk. But despite all these severe
conditions, the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a martyr Church,
stays with her flock, doing all that is possible to help people enduring
the most terrible times in the modern history of Ukraine. In the fire
of civic confrontation, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their
homes and become refugees. In fleeing the terrors of war, many of them
have found asylum in churches and monasteries, in particular in the
Svyatogorsky Laura of the Assumption, which is now overfilled with
refugees. In Donetsk, Gorlovka and Lugansk, civilians, in the hope to
escape the bombing and shelling, remain in churches overnight, where
they receive roof and free food. Other monasteries, parishes, dioceses
of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, too, give aid to refugees and
civilians in general.
The Moscow Patriarchate as a whole has used all its resources to
render humanitarian aid to civilians in the areas where hostilities are
going on. In the Russian Orthodox churches, a special daily prayer is
lifted up for peace and overcoming of fratricidal strife in Ukraine. The
Church has taken care of many thousands of refugees from eastern
Ukraine accommodated in tent camps and taken from it to specially
prepared facilities in various parts of Russia. Aid is given to all
regardless of nationality and faith. Among those who are seeking asylum
in Russia are numerous servicemen of the Ukrainian Army who do not wish
to shoot at their own people.
In these days so hard for the whole Russian Orthodox Church,
especially for her faithful in Ukraine, I ask Your Holiness, Most
Reverend archpastors, pastors, monastics and all the faithful of the
Holy Church of Constantinople to pray for peace in the Ukrainian land,
for a end of the bloodshed and for our suffering brothers in the Lord,
especially archpastors and pastors who, in this most difficult situation
of civic confrontation, continue courageously to do their duty and to
carry out their church ministry and to defend Holy Orthodoxy.
I would like to ask Your Holiness to use every opportunity for
raising your voice in defence of Orthodox Christians in the east of
Ukraine, who, in a situation of violence on the part of the Greek
Catholics and schismatics, live in everyday fear for themselves and
their loved ones, in the fear that if the prosecutors take over, the
Orthodox will be forced to renounce their faith or subjected to severe
discrimination.
With brotherly love in the Lord,
+Kirill
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia
