The Russian and Ukrainian nations should enhance their spiritual union and it is hoped that no war will occur between the two, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia said.
The Russian and Ukrainian nations should enhance their spiritual
union and it is hoped that no war will occur between the two, Patriarch
Kirill of Moscow and all Russia said.
“Today we are praying that no military clashes ever occur between the
brothers and that half-brothers do not clash in a cruel way, so that
death and destruction do not occur,” the Patriarch said following a
liturgy of pre-sanctified gifts in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on
Friday.
The Church has always been the guarantor of the two nation’s unity
and it is wished to “not be destroyed by external political forces,”
Patriarch Kirill said.
The Russian and other local Orthodox Churches share the same opinion
that “no other way to overcome the split exists but the return of
belligerents to the bosom of the united holy Church,” the Patriarch
said.
For over 400 years attempts were made to split, to divide the Russian
world – “the great Russian civilization, which came from Kyiv and
expanded throughout the vast scope of Eurasia,” the Patriarch said.
“This authentic civilization based on Orthodoxy and Orthodox moral
values gives no peace for over 400 years to those, who see some
challenge to their own ideological sets in this civilization. And we
know that every time enemies attacked our Homeland, the main thing they
wanted to do was to divide our people and especially to dissect southern
and western lands from the single world,” he said.
Independent states exist today within the scope of the Russian world
and Russia treats with respect their sovereignty, readiness and wish to
build by themselves their national life “but this does not mean that the
aspiration for rightful sovereignty and for implementing this
sovereignty should be accompanied by the destruction of the common
spiritual space,” the Patriarch said.
