"Let those who want to pray be allowed to pray in what they consider their church" Pope Francis said.

None of the warring parties have heeded the Pope's pleas for the war to cease.

Praying is never evil

"I continue to follow with sorrow the fighting in Ukraine and the Russian Federation. And in thinking about the laws recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the freedom of those who pray" the pope said after his Angelus address on Sunday.

Those who truly pray always pray for all, he said, explaining why he was concerned.

"A person does not commit evil because of praying. If someone commits evil against his people, he will be guilty for it but he cannot have committed evil because he prayed.

"Please, let no Christian church be abolished directly or indirectly. Churches are not to be touched!" he said.

New law

In April, a Kyiv International Institute of Sociology study found 83 percent thought the Government should intervene in the activities of the UOC.

The study also found 63 percent supported banning the UOC altogether.

On August 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed into law a bill banning the branch of the UOC dependent on the Moscow Patriarchate.

It is the country's main denomination.

Religious groups with ties to Russia have been given nine months to sever their relationship with Moscow or leave the country.

Persecution alleged

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is not pleased with the new law.

He says Kyiv is "persecuting" followers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church dependent on the Moscow Patriarchate.

The split has deepened the Russia-Ukraine conflict's religious dimension, giving Kirill cause to defend Russia's invasion.

It is a holy war, he says.

However, that branch of the Orthodox Church has been losing influence since a new independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church was founded in 2018.

Nonetheless, it still has thousands of Ukrainian parishes.

Conflicted interests alleged

Even though UOC cut ties with Moscow in 2022 after the conflict in Ukraine began, Ukrainian authorities consider it to be under Russian influence.

The authorities have increasingly launched legal actions, searches and seizures against it.

The Ukraine security service has accused the UOC of acting as a platform to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Its churches are havens for spies, the security service alleges. It has launched criminal proceedings against at least 100 UOC clergy members. So far, 26 clergy have been sentenced.

Source

• La Croix
• RNS

The attack, which targeted the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, resulted in the tragic loss of at least 137 lives.

"Following the brutal terrorist attack in Moscow which left many people dead and injured, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the relatives of the victims and support to everyone who suffered in this terrible tragedy" Pezzi said in a statement.

"Today, our hearts are filled with horror and pain, but we will not allow them to make us forget that our lives and the lives of all people are in the hands of God" the archbishop said.

The Islamic State group's Afghanistan branch claimed responsibility for the atrocity, sparking widespread condemnation and shock.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the detention of 11 individuals suspected of involvement in the attack. He also suggested a connection to Ukraine.

However Ukrainian officials vehemently denied any involvement, dismissing the accusation as baseless and absurd.

Patriarch Kirill "shocked"

Pezzi noted that Holy Week begins in the Catholic Church on Sunday and "reminds us that death is not the last word—that Christ conquers death".

"But before this, He shares with us the entire depth of our suffering, ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with pain,' Jesus does not free us from suffering but goes through it with us. God's response to human suffering is a loving presence" Archbishop Pezzi said.

Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said he was "deeply shocked by the terrorist attack" at the concert hall.

"The crime committed is striking in its cynicism and cruelty. I express my sincere condolences to you and my heart grieves with you" Kirill stated.

Kirill said the Orthodox Church will provide "all necessary pastoral assistance to the victims and families of the victims".

In the wake of the terror attack in Moscow, Archbishop Pezzi asked his people to pray "for the salvation of all whose lives that are still in danger, for peace for the dead, for help and healing for the injured, and for courage and patience for all who are called to help them".

"Please don't despair and be that loving presence of Christ where you are, be a witness of hope in these dark times. I also ask you to exercise due care and discretion for your personal and public safety" Pezzi said.

Source

Crux

The Guardian

He made no mention of Putin's February 24 invasion of Ukraine or the war that erupted after. Read more

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.

Read More

And there will be no papal visit to Kyiv while war rages, Pope Francis said in an interview with the Argentine daily newspaper La Nación on 21 April.

Pope Francis told reporters on 2 April that he was considering a possible visit to the Ukrainian capital.

But in his latest interview, he told La Nación: "I cannot do anything that puts higher objectives at risk, which are the end of the war, a truce or at least a humanitarian corridor."

"What good would it do for the pope to go to Kyiv if the war were to continue the next day?" he said.

When asked about Patriarch Kirill, Pope Francis said: "I am sorry that the Vatican has had to suspend a second meeting with Patriarch Kirill, which we had scheduled for June in Jerusalem." Their first meeting was in 2016 in Havana, the first time the Pope and the Moscow patriarch had met personally.

He explained that the Vatican's diplomatic team understood that such a meeting "at this time could lead to much confusion".

Personally, he said he seeks to promote fruitful interreligious dialogue because mutual understanding or agreement "is better than conflict".

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, had confirmed on 7 April that Pope Francis wanted a meeting with Patriarch Kirill in a "neutral place," but this has been cancelled. However, the patriarch's support for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war on Ukraine could make a meeting inadvisable.

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of external relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, told reporters on 22 April that "the events of the past two months necessitated adjustments to the plans and postponement of the meeting.

"Too many problems would now arise during its preparations in terms of security, logistics, and coverage of the meeting in the public space" he said, according to Interfax. "We will wait for a better time for this event."

The Vatican will never stop its diplomatic efforts to mediate an end to the war against Ukraine, Pope Francis said. He told La Nación that he is willing "to do everything" to end the bloodshed.

Sources

The Tablet

"We are entering a new era of cold war," Patriarch Bartholomew (pictured) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople said in a Turkish-language broadcast interview.

"We do not know what will happen next. I hope this cold war period will last a short time. I hope World War 3 won't break out."

Patriarch Bartholomew praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for "setting a very good example for his people" in resistance to the Russian invasion.

At the same time, he rebuked Putin for inflicting "a great injustice" on Ukraine.

"Ukraine was liberated 30 years ago, but they continue to be brothers. They continue to be coreligionists, yet Putin has declared a war against them," he said.

"Putin is a very intelligent and dynamic leader, so it is not easy to understand how he decided this. Putin did himself an injustice. He earned the hatred of the whole world."

That rebuke could prove to be a severe blow to Putin's ideology. Kremlin officials have used the traditional links between the Russian Orthodox Church and Ukrainian believers to secure Russian political influence in Ukraine.

"This is a tectonic move," former Turkish opposition lawmaker Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner.

"I find this potentially as impactful as the role [the] Vatican played toward the end of the Cold War.

"Although the ecumenical patriarch is different from the pope, the impact of his words on the Russian hegemonic project could be as destructive as the impact of Pope John Paul II's impact on the Soviet hegemonic project."

Putin regards Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine as "a single large nation, a triune nation". He has pressured Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko to bring Russia and Belarus into a formal "union-state."

Ukrainian officials believe that Putin wants to force Zelensky, or a future Ukrainian leader, to follow Lukashenko into the union-state.

Meanwhile, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has offered moral legitimacy to those ambitions. This was evident in the prayers for peace he offered in the days since the invasion began.

"God forbid that a terrible line stained with the blood of our brothers should be drawn between Russia and Ukraine," he said on February 27.

"May the Lord preserve the Russian land. When I say ‘Russian' ... the land which now includes Russia and Ukraine and Belarus and other tribes and peoples."

Patriarch Bartholomew, by contrast, expressed "solidarity ... spiritual, moral, [and] through prayer" with the defenders of Ukraine as he praised the Ukrainian government for refusing to cave in to Putin's demands.

"They do not want to surrender, and they are right," he said in the broadcast interview.

"Why should they surrender their freedom to the invader? Because right now, Ukraine is under Russian occupation. Will we say war or occupation? It's the same. A very bad situation, a foreign country, but a coreligionist and a neighbour at the same time."

Those rebukes could provide an effective antidote to Putin and Patriarch Kirill's justifications for the war, analysts suggest.

Sources

Washington Examiner

The New Yorker

The Conversation

Taking to the pulpit Kirill told the people that spiritual danger justified his country's invasion of Ukraine.

Depicting the war in spiritual terms, he said, "We have entered into a struggle that has not a physical, but a metaphysical significance."

An unnamed world power is posing a "test for the loyalty" of countries by demanding they hold gay pride parades to join a global club of nations with its own ideas of freedom and "excess consumption.

"Pride parades are designed to demonstrate that sin is one variation of human behaviour," he said.

President Putin's longtime ally told Ukranian and Russian Orthodox worshippers in a homily that Russia's "military operation" in Ukraine was about "which side of humanity God will be on": Russia's side, or Western countries that embrace more progressive values.

Despite his focus on sin, Kirill made no mention in his homily of Russia's widespread invasion and its bombardment of civilian targets.

Many Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and elsewhere are appalled by Kirill's stance.

For centuries the Moscow Patriarch claimed the ultimate loyalty of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, even though the latter retained ample autonomy.

Even as recently as three years ago, many priests, monks and faithful had remained loyal to him, even with the formation of a more nationalist, Kyiv-based Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2018 and 2019.

Kirill's recent comments, however, have led many Ukrainian Orthodox bishops to authorise their priests not to commemorate him in prayers during public worship services.

This is a symbolically important statement in Orthodox tradition, which puts a premium on the faithful being in communion with their divinely ordained hierarchy.

Elsewhere, a Stockholm-based professor of ecclesiology, international relations and ecumenism says Kirill's comments show him to be in a "golden cage."

He said Kirill helped "supply the ideology" that Putin has used to justify Russian hegemony over the region. In return, the church has received strong government support.

While many Orthodox and other religious conservatives, including in Ukraine, share Kirill's stance on sexual ethics, Ukrainians and Ukrainian Orthodox are under attack, are suffering, and are afraid for the future for the nation," a US commentator says.

"None of that is reflected in the sermon. If rockets are falling on Kharkiv and Kyiv and the patriarch starts talking about gay parades, it seems like something is odd here."

Source

• Newsweek
• Religion News Service
• Image: Euronews

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."

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