Patriarch Kirill: Uniates, schismatics seeking to eradicate Orthodoxy in Ukraine

Moscow, August 18, Interfax – 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.

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