THE Primate of the Ukrainian independent Orthodox Church (OCU), Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko), has called on followers to step up support for their country before the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale attack, while a recently dismissed Orthodox priest warned Western Christians not to “taken in” by Moscow’s claims to be defending Christian values.
“It will soon be ten years since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and two full years of bloodshed, full-scale aggression, and deliberate extermination of our people,” Metropolitan Epiphany said in a social-media message on Tuesday.
“At the cost of so many lives of our homeland’s faithful sons and daughters, we still have the opportunity to live, toil, and pray in a free country, not in conditions of occupation. Besides offering thanks, however, we must offer continual help — standing and surviving, helping families, saving the lives of our defenders, and stopping the enemy.”
The message was published as Ukrainian and Russian forces made conflicting claims about territorial advances in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. Ukrainian drone strikes continued against oil depots and refineries in Russia.
Metropolitan Epiphany said that the month of February would always remind Ukrainians of the “brutal war brought to their home” by Russia, which had caused a change in attitudes towards “the real values of life”.
His Church, he said, had saved “thousands of lives” through its war-zone missions, and would continue to help, alongside other aid initiatives, “as long as there is need and opportunity”.
At the same time, Professor Cyril Hovorun, a Russian Orthodox priest unfrocked this month for criticising Russia’s invasion, accused Patriarch Kirill of using the power of President Vladimir Putin’s state to instil fear and ensure a “one-man style of management”. He urged Western Christians not to be seduced by “romantic notions” about Russia’s defence of Christian values.
“Patriarch Kirill wishes to demonstrate his loyalty to Putin — that he’s doing more than expected of him shows he isn’t sure that the Kremlin fully trusts him,” he told the Glavkom news agency of Ukraine this week.
“Russia is destroying families, while promoting the rhetoric of family values — and this rhetoric works particularly in the United States among conservative Catholics, Evangelicals, and Orthodox. . . We need to highlight the discrepancy between rhetoric and practice, and help dispel romantic notions about Russia.”
On Monday, the European Union’s General Affairs Council renewed sanctions against Moscow and moved closer to agreeing a €50-billion aid package for Ukraine. The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, warned that continued congressional blocking of a parallel US military-support plan risked undermining Ukraine’s achievements in two years of fighting.
Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, again postponed final approval of a draft law, tabled a year ago, banning religious organisations associated with the Russian Federation.
Clashes continued between supporters of the OCU and the Moscow-aligned UOC. The UOC has said that OCU members had forcibly entered its Cathedral of the Holy Intercession, Khmelnytsky. It has vowed to appeal against a court decision barring its continued use of Cathedral of the Transfiguration and the Holy Trinity Monastery in Chernihiv.
In a video address on Monday, the Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, reminded US legislators that the war had become the “greatest military conflict since World War II”. He urged Americans not to “turn it into a mere object of political battles”.
Russian forces, he said, had already destroyed up to 600 churches, houses of prayer, synagogues, and mosques across Ukraine, leaving 25 clergy killed and 20 others missing. He said that Moscow’s claim to be “a reliable stronghold protecting Christian and traditional family values” was false.
”Once again, we are asking the world public to pay attention to these crimes against humanity by Russia — to see who is really the enemy of human freedom, particularly religious freedom,” Archbishop Shevchuk said in a separate national message on Monday.
“We want the world to understand properly who is exploiting Christian values, while killing people’s faith in God and trust for any institution truly serving them in the name of God.”
The former Russian Orthodox Exarch for Africa, Metropolitan Leonid (Gorbachov) of Klin, who was dismissed in October for “violations of ecclesiastical law” after reported criticism of Patriarch Kirill, said in a Telegram post that he felt “abandoned and betrayed” after being summoned to appear before a Church court for possible unfrocking.