However, in a more contentious move, the law also banned religious entities "affiliated" with Moscow. This will affect mainly parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the nominally independent Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church which, despite various name and governance changes, is still formally subservient to the patriarch in Moscow.

An expert commission that will be appointed by the government to implement the new law could deem the UOC's parishes and priests insufficiently disentangled from Moscow.

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On Thursday, the Ukrainian parliament's Committee for Humanitarian Affairs and Information Policy approved a draft law.

This aims to protect national security and religious freedom.

The legislative initiative was first adopted last October.

It now includes a clause "In view of the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church is an ideological continuation of the regime of the aggressor state, complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the name of the Russian Federation and the ideology of the 'Russian world', the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine are prohibited".

The draft law targets the UOC, which has around 10,000 parishes, accusing it of abusing religion and spreading Kremlin propaganda.

Outrage in Ukraine

Despite the UOC declaring its separation from the Moscow Patriarchate in May 2022, Ukrainian authorities still recognise the church as part of it.

The Russian Orthodox Church also maintains that the UOC remains under its jurisdiction.

The alleged support of the Russian war effort by UOC clergy has sparked outrage in Ukraine.

Some bishops and priests have been imprisoned or handed over to Russia in prisoner exchanges.

Despite this, the UOC leadership prays for the Ukrainian army's defence and donates money to support it.

Russia accuses Ukraine of persecuting Orthodox Christians and violating religious freedom, with the EU and USA also raising concerns. Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer for the UOC, warned that the law could hinder Ukraine's NATO and EU accession.

He said it could also damage relations with future US administrations.

The Ukrainian government has long supported the Orthodox Church of Ukraine which was established in 2018 with the backing of Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople.

Surveys indicate that most Ukrainians align with the OCU.

Sources

Katholisch

CathNews New Zealand

In a video call to mark the opening of children's centres near Moscow, he was heard speaking in overtly religious terms about the need to shape the worldview of young Russians.

Putin emphasised the importance of combatting what he terms the West's "Satanic" values.

During the call, the Kremlin leader referenced various Bible quotes. This is an escalating trend of using religion to rationalise his harsh campaign in Ukraine.

Drawing parallels from biblical narratives, Putin referenced Peter and Andrew as examples of individuals who spread the word of God under Jesus' guidance. He likened their mission to his own efforts to safeguard Russian culture and traditions.

In a meeting of Russian officials, Putin asked: "Do you remember how Jesus came to Galilee and saw the fishermen beside the Sea of Galilee?

"One was catching fish, another was fixing his net. And He said to them: ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men, fishers of human souls'. They became his evangelists, his students.

"This was very important at a time when world religions were developing … but it is no less current now, when we must defend our traditional values, our culture, our traditions and our history. This is very important for the future of the country."

"Miracle of God"

Putin stressed the importance of preserving traditional values for the country's future. These values encompassed not only Christianity but also Islam, Judaism and Buddhism which he identified as Russia's other "traditional religions".

Around 70% of Russian citizens identify as Christian and Putin is aware of this.

Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Christian church, is close to Putin. He called Putin's long stint at the top a "miracle of God".

Kirill previously proclaimed that Russian soldiers who died in the line of duty in Ukraine had all of their sins forgiven. He compared their sacrificial death to that of Jesus.

Sources

The Standard

Daily Star

Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, approved the measure — which also adjusts the dates of the Day of Ukrainian Statehood and the Day of Defenders of Ukraine — on July 14, with Zelenskyy formalising it on July 28.

Zelenskyy introduced the legislation on June 28 with an explanatory note that the change would "discard the Russian legacy of celebrating Christmas on Jan 7," the date for the holiday according to the Julian calendar, which the Russian Orthodox and other Eastern Orthodox churches use.

The Julian and Gregorian calendars — implemented in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII and used by Western churches — differ by 13 days.

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In addition to a public conversation, Patriarch Kirill and Dr Sauca had their own private audience to discuss Orthodox matters.

Patriarch Kirill welcomed the guests, saying: "I appreciate that you have come to Russia in these hard times to meet with me and my people and talk about the difficult international relations we live in and are confronted with today which naturally affects our inter-church relations, as well."

Dr Sauca thanked Patriarch Kirill for the meeting and said: "The members of our fellowship are looking with great interest and hope to this visit," explaining that the WCC delegation came to Moscow because of a mandate from the WCC central committee to visit WCC member churches with "bleeding wounds." Those visits have included the Middle East - Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine - and then Ukraine, and now Russia.

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In an interview with the "Church and Peace" programme on Russian television station Russia 24, Metropolitan Anthony Sevryuk of Volokolamsk, the Russian Orthodox Church's "foreign minister," said that "currently relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic one, are practically frozen."

"At this stage, I must say that some comments we read and hear not only from the lips of the pope, but also the great part of his aides, absolutely do not contribute to the preparation of a new meeting and our further cooperation," he said, referring to efforts being made to organise a second meeting between Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill.

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According to Reuters, a senior Russian Orthodox official told the Russian news agency RIA on 24 August that Kirill will not attend the Congress of Leaders of World Religions in the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan next month. Francis, who is slated to attend the gathering, was said to be hoping for an encounter with Kirill on the sidelines of the event.

While the two met in 2016 in Havana, the abrupt cancellation marks the second time since the Ukraine war started that a chance for the two church leaders to meet has been scratched. Francis was expected to speak with Kirill in June in Jerusalem, but Vatican officials were concerned that the encounter would have diplomatic repercussions.

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It was their first meeting since Anthony's predecessor, Hilarion, was ousted in June in an abrupt decision indicating discord at the top of the Moscow Patriarchate over the conflict.

The Vatican listed Anthony on the pope's official appointments but gave no details of what was discussed in the private audience.

The pope will attend a congress of religious leaders in the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan from 13 to 15 September, where he has said he hoped to meet with Kirill.

Read More

No doubt, they are even more irritated that their continuous offers to mediate or facilitate discussions between the two countries, which the Cardinal Secretary of State repeats nearly every day, have been rejected by the Kremlin with a resounding nyet!

The 85-year-old pope is world-famous as a man of peace and dialogue. During his nine years in office he has emerged as one of the globe's most persistent advocates for fraternal and harmonious relations between all peoples and nations.

And using the moral bully pulpit that is unique to the Roman papacy, he has overtaken the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (often called the "Green Patriarch") as the planet's leading religious leader on ecological, environmental and human life issues.

But it seems there is nothing the pope can do right now regarding the abominable situation in Ukraine, except promote humanitarian efforts by donating money and Church personnel. And, obviously, he can pray and urge others to pray for peace.

Francis is the master of symbolic gestures. And one of the earliest ones he performed after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24 was to personally go to the Russian Embassy in the Holy See.

Many hailed this as breaking with protocol (something the Jesuit pope clearly relishes) and a way to emphasise his displeasure with Moscow for the attack.

But another version of what happened claims he first tried to telephone Putin and then the ambassador. When they refused to take his call, he went and knocked on the envoy's door, which is located in a Vatican-owned building a few blocks from St. Peter's Square.

Francis, though rebuffed, did not give up. He continued to appeal for peace, careful not to call out Russia in order to "keep open a door" for negotiations, presumably involving the Vatican in some capacity.

Still nothing, despite his carefully worded remarks aimed at not offending the Russians. Employing linguistic acrobatics, the pope has been increasingly critical and pointed in his appeals, leaving no doubt that he is angered and anguished by Putin's relentless onslaught.

Getting nowhere with Putin or the Moscow Patriarch

A full three weeks after the invasion, Francis finally turned to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. Or did Kirill turn to him?

It is not clear who initiated the video conversation the two Christian leaders had this past Wednesday.

The patriarch also had a similar tete-a-tete the same day with the Archbishop of Canterbury, either before or after his online encounter with the pope.

The Moscow Patriarchate and the Vatican issued separated communiques with general information about the conversation Kirill and Francis had. The fact that they did not issue a single, joint statement — whether because they failed or did not even try — is not a promising sign.

The Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church have long mistrusted the Vatican and the Roman Church. The meeting the pope and the patriarch had in 2016 in Cuba was indeed an extraordinary and historic moment. But it was only that — a moment.

Kirill is evidently more interested in promoting Russian imperialism rather than Christian unity.

No one should expect him to do anything to even suggest to Putin that Francis and his Vatican aides can help bring to end what is happening in Ukraine in way that is satisfactory to the Kremlin or the Moscow Patriarchate.

The pope's "last ditch effort"

That leaves a pope eager to help on behalf of all humanity with few options except to keep hanging around in front of Russia's door and to continue making symbolic gestures.

Francis has decided it's time to make a "Hail Mary" pass, a football phrase coined in 1975 that means "a last-ditch effort".

He's announced that he intends to consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary during a March 25 liturgy in St Peter's Basilica. And he wants all the bishops in the world to also perform this same pious act simultaneously with him.

According to child visionaries of the Marian apparitions that allegedly took place in 1917 in Fatima (Portugal), the Blessed Virgin Mary is said to have called on the pope and all the world's bishops to consecrate Russia to her "immaculate heart" as a condition for world peace.

Make of this what you will. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger pointed out in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's "theological commentary", the alleged apparitions and message of Fatima are considered a "private revelation".

"Such a message can be a genuine help in understanding the Gospel and living it better at a particular moment in time; therefore it should not be disregarded," he said.

But then he added: "It is a help which is offered, but which one is not obliged to use."

The Fatima fanatics

However, those who do use this message — and, different from Ratzinger, believe all Catholics are obliged to follow it — believe Russia's consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is essential for world peace and the preservation of the Catholic faith.

Even though the consecration has already been performed numerous times by numerous popes (Pius XII, Paul VI and John Paul II), Fatima fanatics have always claimed that those were not valid.

They even refused to believe the words of the last surviving visionary — Sister Lucia — who said the consecration John Paul carried out on March 25, 1984 "has been done just as Our Lady asked".

None of the popes specifically named Russia for political (and ecumenical) reasons, given the geopolitical situation of the post-World War II and Cold War era in which they were living.

But John Paul made it clear in 1984 that Russia was indeed being consecrated. And he insisted that it was done so for once and for all.
Russia is part of "all nations".

"The power of this consecration lasts for all time and embraces all individuals, peoples and nations. It overcomes every evil that the spirit of darkness is able to awaken, and has in fact awakened in our times, in the heart of man and in his history," the Polish pope said in the prayer.

The "act of entrustment" and consecration took place during the Holy Year of Redemption, which marked the 1950th anniversary of Christ's death and resurrection. The Jubilee began on the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) 1983 and was concluded on Easter Sunday (April 22) 1984.

"In a special way we entrust and consecrate to you those individuals and nations which particularly need to be thus entrusted and consecrated," John Paul — and all the world's bishops — said on March 25, 1984.

"From famine and war, deliver us. From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us," said one segment of the prayer.

But the Fatima fanatics — and that is what they are — have not accepted this. They see the alleged apparitions and their message as a magical prophecy of what will happen if certain things — liked consecrating Russia — are not meticulously carried out.

Faith and reason

But Ratzinger rejected this sort of nonsense.

"It should be kept in mind that prophecy in the biblical sense does not mean to predict the future but to explain the will of God for the present, and therefore show the right path to take for the future," he said.

"A person who foretells what is going to happen responds to the curiosity of the mind which wants to draw back the veil on the future," he added.

And when the Vatican finally revealed the so-called "third secret" of Fatima, the former CDF prefect and future pope said this:

Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed.

Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity.

What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the "secret": the exhortation to prayer as the path of "salvation for souls" and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.

"Allow me to add here a personal recollection," Ratzinger said at one point in the theological explanation.

"In a conversation with me, Sister Lucia said that it appeared ever more clearly to her that the purpose of all the apparitions was to help people to grow more and more in faith, hope and love — everything else was intended to lead to this," he said.

Pope Francis will likely reiterate this next week when he consecrates Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, hopefully, he will insist that this act is symbolic, as were the words and images the child-visionaries at Fatima allegedly heard and saw.

This is not some magic trick or commercial exchange — a consecration in exchange for peace.

The high priests of our time, including the Bishop of Rome, must focus principally on leading the Christian people in prayer and help them grow more firmly in faith, hope and love.

Everything else is in the hands of God. Read more

Source

• La Croix
• Image: Vatican News

In recent weeks, the Russia's Patriarch Kirill has used religious language to justify his support for Russia's military aggression.

Even Kirill's own supporters are looking elsewhere, says Dew.

"The invasion has created new ecumenical tensions. As many as 160 Russian Orthodox parishes around the world have sought to join other communions as a result."

Dew says New Zealand Church leaders, together with many others around the world, have written to Kirill expressing their "great concern about his religious justification for the war and asking him to use his influence in Moscow to bring it to an end".

Kirill's use of religious language to justify his support for Russia's military aggression is failing to impress Pope Francis who recently rejected the idea put by the Patriarch Kirill that Russia's Ukraine invasion is a "holy war".

During his Sunday address and blessing, Francis continued his implicit criticism of Russia, calling the conflict in Ukraine an unjustified "senseless massacre".

"The violent aggression against Ukraine is unfortunately not slowing down," he told about 30,000 people in St Peter's Square.

"It is a senseless massacre where every day slaughters and atrocities are being repeated," Francis said in his latest strong condemnation of the war, which has so far avoided mentioning Russia by name.

"There is no justification for this," he added.

Moscow says the action it launched on February 24 is a "special military operation" designed not to occupy territory but to demilitarise its neighbour and purge it what it sees as dangerous nationalists. Francis has already rejected that terminology.

"I beg all the players in the international community to truly commit themselves to stopping this repugnant war," the pope said, drawing loud cheers and applause from the crowd.

"Even this week missiles and bombs hit civilians, the elderly, children and pregnant mothers," he said.

Source

• Supplied
• Reuters

If he gives in to this ultimate vertigo, he will not fail to invoke Seraphim of Sarov, the Slavic Francis of Assisi whom Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow, consecrated as patron saint of Russia's nuclear arsenal.

A controversial characteristic? The two potentates don't need anyone's help in order to be self-congratulatory. The pact that has bound them for 20 years has long had its share of kitschy devilry that is unintentionally comical. The war in Ukraine reveals its Luciferian dimension.

On February 23, the day before the invasion, Kirill issued a statement from his residence at the Danilov Monastery, congratulating Putin on the celebration of the "Defender of the Fatherland" holiday.

In his homily at Christ the Saviour Cathedral on the 27th, in the middle of the offensive, Kirill castigated the "forces of evil" that wanted to prevent Putin from achieving "the unity of all Russians."

The Sunday before Lent is known in the Orthodox Church as Last Judgment Sunday. The civil and liturgical calendars collide in the deadly ballet for the latest heads of Church and State to have emerged from the homo sovieticus.

A legacy of the totalitarian era

This sacrilegious alliance is a legacy of the totalitarian era. After 1989, only the Patriarchate and the KGB have remained as institutions in Russia. But these are old ties.

Under Brezhnev, Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad (who died in 1978), who was a child of persecution, traded international collaboration for internal moderation.

His followers occupied the major seats of the Soviet Union, the vicariate of Moscow, and the bishoprics of Minsk and Kyiv.

Among them was Kirill of Smolensk, who took over the Russian Church's Department for External Church Relations prior to being elected patriarch in 2009.

The ascensions of Kirill and Vladimir Putin have been parallel. The pontificate of one and the reign of the other eventually merged.

In order to grow with the new tsar, the patriarch not only blessed the political-religious mechanism of the Kremlin, but also maximised it.

He became a steward of minority faiths, a codifier of the sacred and morality, a chaplain to institutions and oligarchs, absolving widespread corruption while carving out a personal fortune.

Imperial restoration

But Kirill's crucial mission in the service of imperial restoration also played out abroad. The Patriarchate of Moscow is the only entity that still covers the entire territory of the former USSR.

Kirill has endorsed Putin's diplomatic aggressiveness. He has put into practice the ideology of the "pan-Russian world," ensured docile hierarchies in Belarus and Ukraine, maintained ethnic dioceses from Estonia to Kazakhstan and united the refractory branches from emigration to the West, through bribes, if necessary.

But to assert his desire for power, Kirill will end up breaking Orthodox unity.

He has conflated the capacity for domination and its resulting damage ever since 2016 when he refused to participate in the great pan-Orthodox council convened by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

He then turned to the Holy Land, where he sought to instrumentalise the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Embarking on the war in Syria, he tried to subjugate the Patriarchate of Antioch.

Taking advantage of the inroads made by Russia's Wagner Group, a shadowy group of private military contractors helping the Kremlin exert its influence in Africa, he tried to torpedo the Patriarchate of Alexandria.

And when Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, primate of the worldwide Orthodox Church, prophetically granted Ukraine the status of an independent Church in 2019, Kirill declared it "apostate" and entered into schism.

But this time it's too much.

Even Metropolitan Onufriy, Kirill's legate who heads the part of the Ukrainian Church that remains faithful to Big Brother, has just called for patriotic resistance. It was clear that deprived of its significant Ukrainian base, the Patriarchate of Moscow would become just another Orthodox Church.

It is done.

It is now up to Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis to act together so that the terrible conflict in Ukraine does not reawaken the murderous divisions of the past between Orthodox, Latin Catholics and Greek Catholics.

The future of Europe is at stake - the future of the lived Gospel.

• Jean-François Colosimo is an Orthodox theologian and historian of religions. He studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris, Fordham University in New York and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece).
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

A Sunday sermon with very political overtones. It was delivered on February 27 at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow by Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The 75-year-old patriarch castigated those who fight against the historical unity of Russia and Ukraine, calling them "evil forces."

"Protect our common historical homeland"

"God forbid that the present political situation in fraternal Ukraine so close to us should be aimed at making the evil forces that have always strived against the unity of Rus' and the Russian Church, gain the upper hand," he said.

Rus' is a medieval state, considered the ancestor of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

Kirill, who was elected patriarch in 2009, has been relatively discreet about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But he clearly supports the vision of the Russian power regarding the unity of the two countries.

"It must not be allowed to give the dark and hostile external forces an occasion to laugh at us; we should do everything to preserve peace between our peoples while protecting our common historical Motherland against every outside action that can destroy this unity," he said on Sunday, while praying for the return of peace.

Restoring the greatness of Russian Orthodoxy

Kirill remained silent during Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. But this time he's displayed more pronounced support.

The context has changed since 2019 when the Patriarchate of Constantinople officially recognised the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's independence from the Moscow Patriarchate. This ended 332 years of Russian religious tutelage over the Ukrainian faithful.

It was a decision the Patriarchate of Moscow saw as an unbearable affront since Ukraine is considered the historical cradle of Russian Orthodoxy.

And it is this Russian Orthodox that Patriarch Kirill wants to return to all its grandeur.

He is one of the most powerful religious dignitaries in the world, heading a Church that has 36,000 parishes and more than 100 million faithful.

Kirill has made it his mission to bring back to the fore a Church that almost disappeared during the Soviet era, in Russia and around the globe.

"Putin remains the master"

On the national scene, the patriarch does not hesitate to lean on the regime of Vladimir Putin — younger than him by six years — with whom he shares an obsession for the greatness of Russia.

Kirill supports the legitimacy of the regime, which in return allows him to extend his influence on society through the defense of traditional values.

President Putin offers the patriarch political and financial support and has said that he sees the Russian Orthodox Church as a "natural partner."

"For Vladimir Putin, religion serves social order and family morality. In exchange, the Church and its patriarch bring religious discourse to the ideology in place," said Jean-François Colosimo, a historian and theologian.

"But it is an unequal exchange, because Putin remains the master. Kirill behaves as a kind of minister of religious affairs and, like any of Putin's ministers, must show submission," he pointed out.

But who really is Patriarch Kirill?

He was born Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev in 1946 in Leningrad and is the heir of a Church that was persecuted for more than 70 years, from the October Revolution to the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

His father and grandfather were both Orthodox priests who died in the Gulag. And in 1960 the young Gundyayev entered the seminary, being ordained nine years later under the name Kirill.

The budding theologian was quickly identified as a future leader for the Russian Church.

His rapid rise to prominence included an appointment in Geneva as the Russian Church's representative to the World Council of Churches (WCC). He then headed the Moscow Patriarchate's office for external religious (i.e. ecumenical) relations for 20 years (1989-2009).

In 2009, he was elected patriarch under the name of Kirill I, succeeding Alexey II.

No warm relationship with Putin

"Since then, the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia has been committed to carrying the message of Vladimir Putin's regime, wherever the patriarchate is historically present, in the whole territory of the former USSR," explained Colosimo.

But he stressed that the two men do not have a warm relationship.

Kirill's support of Putin's power is somewhat dictated by challenges inside his Church, especially from a fringe that is more nationalistic, anti-Western and anti-ecumenical than he is.

He thus became the first Patriarch of Moscow to meet a Roman pope when he and Pope Francis met in 2016 in Cuba.

Now, six years later, another meeting is under consideration, even if its preparation has become a lot trickier given the context of the war in Ukraine.

• Arnaud Bevilacqua writes for La Croix from France
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

Francis said he planned to meet next week with the Russian church's foreign envoy "to agree on a possible meeting" with Patriarch Kirill. The pontiff noted that Kirill is due to travel in the coming weeks, but Francis said he was also "ready to go to Moscow" even if diplomatic protocols weren't yet in place.

"Because talking with a brother, there are no protocols," Francis told reporters as he traveled home from Greece. "We are brothers. We say things to each other's face like brothers."

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The court in the Ural Mountains region ordered Father Sergiy to pay 90,000 rubles ($1,250). The 65-year-old monk, who has attracted nationwide attention by urging followers to disobey church leadership and ignore church closures during the pandemic, didn't attend the court hearing.

On Friday, a Russian Orthodox Church panel in Yekaterinburg ruled to defrock Father Sergiy for breaking monastic rules. He didn't show up at the session and dismissed the verdict, urging his backers to come to defend the Sredneuralsk women's monastery where he has holed up since last month. Read more

An extraordinary General Assembly of 186 members met in Paris Sept. 7 to decide whether to reconnect with the Russian Orthodox Church, which they left in 1931 because of persecution under Stalin's anti-religious policy.

This follows the unexpected removal of the exarchical status of the Archdiocese of Russian Churches in Western Europe (AERO) by the Patriarchate of Constantinople on Nov. 27, 2018.

That was a decision that had forced "parishes to disperse in the different dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Western Europe," said Archbishop Jean de Charioupolis, head of the AERO. Read more

Metropolitan Ilarion, the head of the Russian Orthodox church's external relations, says Constantinople's decision allowing the Ukranian Orthodox church to establish itself as an independent church is behind the move.

Ilarion says the Constantinople Patriarchate synod's decision to officially recognise "the leaders of the schism" within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church legitimises "the schism that has existed for more than a quarter of a century."

Ilarion says that "has made it impossible for us to stay united with the Constantinople Patriarchate."

The Russian Orthodox church will "respond firmly" to Bartholomew's decision, he says.

Ilarion's statement was made soon after Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, held a meeting with the Russian Security Council to discuss the Orthodox church in Ukraine.

Following this, the Kremlin made a fresh warning about Ukraine capital Kyiv's quest for an independent church.

It said Russia would protect the interests of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine if the split were to lead to illegal action or violence.

Reverend Aleksandr Volkov, a spokesman for Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, says the Holy Synod of the Church would "express its position," without elaborating on what measures it might take.

The Russian Orthodox church's branch in Ukraine has long been accepted by Constantinople Patriarchate as Ukraine's legitimate church, he says.

He has warned the Russian Orthodox synod's response to Constantinople over Ukraine will be "appropriate and tough".

Source

• Reuters
• Unian
• RFERL
• Image: The Catholic Sun

The footage, which has been watched 1.7 million times on YouTube, shows the man describing Jesus as "the rarest Pokemon". Read more

Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill are meeting in Switzerland to resume discussions they began last year in Havana.

At last year's meeting, the Catholic and Orthodox leaders discussed Christian brotherhood and unity.

This year they will talk about progress and rapprochement between the two Churches.

"We spoke as brothers," Pope Francis said of the meeting last year. "We have the same baptism. We are bishops. We spoke of our Churches."

Patriarch Kirill said their private discussion was conducted "with full awareness of the responsibility of our Churches, for the future of Christianity, and for the future of human civilization" and provided a chance to understand each other.

He said the two Churches will work against war.

Other topics of the discussion between the Pope and the Patriarch included poverty, the crisis in the family, abortion and euthanasia.

The Pope and the Patriarch pleaded for young Christians to live their faith in the world.

Both last year and this year's conferences were arranged by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, and Metropolitan Hilarion, president of the department of the external ecclesiastical relations of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate.

Source

• The Catholic World Report
• Angelus
• Image: Vatican Radio

The destruction has caused an outcry from anti-poverty campaigners who say the food should have been given to the poor

A petition against the action on change.org has already attracted more than 300,000 signatures.

Moscow banned many Western food imports last year in retaliation for sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and others during the confrontation over Ukraine.

The change.org petition states: "Sanctions have led to a major growth in food prices on Russian shelves. Russian pensioners, veterans, large families, the disabled and other needy social groups were forced to greatly restrict their diets, right up to starvation."

"If you can just eat these products, why destroy it?"

Russia's food safety watchdog said officials seized 436 tonnes of various food products on August 6 and destroyed more than 320 tonnes.

A huge pile of Western-produced cheese was destroyed in front of television camera.

One priest from the Russian Orthodox Church, which enjoys close ties with the Kremlin, expressed his anger.

"My grandmother always told me that throwing away food is a sin," the cleric, Alexey Uminsky, said.

He was quoted by the website 'Orthodoxy and the World' as saying: "This idea is insane, stupid and vile."

"Such an idea can only appear with a man who has been in no need for anything in recent decades and is ready to do something like that for populism and quasi-patriotism," he added.

Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week the situation should be not blown out of proportion.

"The primary goal is to stop the contraband . . . Second, to protect economic interests of the country hurt by the contraband. Third, and in fact the most important thing, is safeguarding the health of citizens," he told reporters.

While Peskov said the Kremlin was keeping an eye on the change.org petition, he said banned food was arriving without necessary certificates and could therefore pose health risks.

Sources

• Daily Mail
• Vatican Radio
• Image: Sydney Morning Herald

Protestants would rightly howl about how crude and arrogant the tirade was, how awful it was to try to intimidate a smaller and weaker church, and how it was especially out of line because the pope was an invited guest.

The incident would become a cause célèbre, and the Vatican would feel the heat until it coughed up an apology.

So why didn't the same reaction ensue when Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Russian Orthodox Church's department for external relations, used a speech at the Oct. 5-19 Synod of Bishops in the Vatican to take just such a gratuitous swipe at Ukraine's Greek Catholic Church?

Alas, the best answer is probably that when it comes to the Russians, Rome has long been locked into what we might call "weak-kneed ecumenism."

The 5 million strong Greek Catholic Church is an important pro-democracy force in Ukraine.

Speaking in the Vatican's synod hall, Hilarion demanded that the Greek Catholics stop complaining about Russian foreign policy, and stop protesting support for Russian incursions in their country voiced by Russian Orthodox leaders.

Astonishingly, there was no protest by the Vatican, no demand for an apology, no threat to suspend or curtail dialogue.

For sure, not everyone took it lying down.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who was participating in the synod, grabbed Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Greek Catholic Church, and immediately taped a segment for his radio show protesting Hilarion's rhetoric.

Still, the official Vatican response was deafening silence. What gives? Continue reading

Source

• John L. Allen Jr. in Crux

John L. Allen Jr., associate editor of Crux, specialises in coverage of the Vatican.