A METROPOLITAN of the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) was among dozens injured when rival church supporters seized his cathedral, in one of several violent confrontations accompanying a new law that requires church communities to cut ties with Russia.
In a weekend statement, the UOC said that Metropolitan Feodosiy (Snegiryov), currently under house arrest on charges of collaborating with the Russian invasion in 2022, had suffered head injuries and chemical burns when masked men forcibly entered St Michael’s Cathedral, Cherkasy, during an evening service, destroying furnishings and documents.
Ukrainian police had “observed and failed to intervene”, the statement said; it urged the United Nations and European Union to react to “blatant acts of lawlessness, aggression and hatred towards believers”.
Another UOC leader, who also faces treason charges, appealed to the British Government to protect his Church against the law, finalised in August, which has been vigorously defended on national security grounds by President Zelensky’s government.
“The authorities in Ukraine unfairly accuse the UOC of being a mouthpiece of Russian propaganda — nothing is further from the truth,” Metropolitan Arseniy (Yakovenko), Abbot of the Dormition monastery in Sviatohirsk, told The Independent this week.
“Our holy temples and shrines have been destroyed, our priests and parishioners killed in the war. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government seeks to ban the Church. Priests are being wrongfully arrested, our places of worship seized and taken from us”.
In a further sign of Orthodox divisions, however, Churches in neighbouring Moldova adopted different positions on Sunday’s key constitutional referendum, which produced a narrow majority favouring future accession to the EU.
In a message before the vote, which was marred by accusations of Russian state and church interference, the head of Moldova’s Moscow-aligned Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Vladimir (Cantarean), warned that the referendum would determine “the future of generations to come”, and urged Christians to “vote prayerfully according to conscience”.
Metropolitan Petru (Paduraru) of Bessarabia, the Moldovan diocese in the Romanian Orthodox Church, however, told voters that Europe offered an “essential reference” for their country’s direction “both culturally and spiritually”.
“Our belonging to the European space is more than a political or economic objective — it concerns the preservation and consolidation of our Romanian and European identity,” Metropolitan Petru said. His Church has accepted at least 60 seceding parishes since the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022.
“Romania and Europe are watching us — not just as political partners, but also as brothers. Let us use this opportunity to reaffirm the unity of soul by which we share the same future vision.”
The exchanges occurred as a papal envoy, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, paid a fresh visit to Moscow for talks with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, and children’s ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for the abduction of thousands of Ukrainian children.
A Vatican communiqué said that the three-day visit, which included a meeting with the Russian Orthodox Church’s foreign-relations director, Metropolitan Antonii (Sevryuk), had examined “perspectives for continuing humanitarian co-operation”, and “activities carried out so far in reuniting minors with their families and exchanging prisoners, the wounded, and bodies of the fallen”.
Speaking on Sunday in the Cathedral of the Dormition, Smolensk, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow again urged Russians to resist “forces trying to destroy the country and attack its Church”, just as their “heroic predecessors repelled the regiments of foreigners who wished to seize and destroy its united people”.
At a ceremony on the same day, the Order of St Andrew, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in the United States, gave their 2024 Athenagoras Human Rights Award to the widow of the Russian dissident Alexander Navalny, who died in prison in February (News, 23 February), for providing a “symbol of strength and courage” for Russians.
In her acceptance address, Yulia Navalnaya said that the Russian Orthodox Church had become a “tool of state propaganda”, which made it hard to see how it could “regain the trust of the people” and become “a vital social institution strengthening community bonds, teaching goodness, and helping people”.