THE Moscow-linked Orthodox Church in Ukraine (UOC), ignoring a law from July 2023 which allows Christmas to be celebrated on 25 December, kept Christmas separately from other denominations, on Tuesday. This is in accordance with the unrevised Julian calendar still in use in the Russian Church.
“All that’s required is that we come to God with due humility and receive with prayerful hands his wonderful, sacred gift of peace,” the Primate of the UOC, Metropolitan Onufriy (Berezovsky), said in his Christmas message on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, not everyone is seeking peace — there are those who brandish weapons, start wars, rob and destroy others instead. As we stand courageously, defending our land and spiritual freedom, we pray the Lord will soften the hearts of those fighting against us.”
The message was published as UOC communities marked Eastern Christmas on Tuesday, after a weekend barrage of Russian missile and drone strikes was matched by a new Ukrainian offensive into Russia’s Kursk region.
In his own Christmas message, Patriarch Kirill thanked Ukrainian clergy who remained “faithful to canonical Orthodoxy”, often “at risk to life and health”, when “forces of evil, conflict, and division” had “taken up arms” against it.
Talking to Russia’s TASS news agency on Tuesday, the Patriarch said that current events highlighted contrasts between Russia’s “strong, youthful, and developing civilisation” and a “sick civilisation” in the West, where people had “renounced their faith and rejected the basic tenets of human morality”.
He said that many Ukrainians wanted “peace as soon as possible”, but feared repression if they spoke out, while others would see, once Ukraine’s government was changed, how they had succumbed to “an operation by external forces aimed at tearing apart a single people”.
“Very great forces were thrown into stupefying the Ukrainian people — yet I believe that this stupor is only short-term, like anaesthesia,” Patriarch Kirill said. He blessed icons and pectoral crosses with the initials of President Putin, during a Christmas liturgy, for distribution to Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.
“I truly hope the spiritual and cultural potential invested in our peoples, united by a common history and faith, will ultimately triumph over these temporary, but very dangerous political delusions, over the political crimes that led to internecine strife between two fraternal peoples.”
The messages were circulated as other Ukrainians Christians marked the Epiphany on 6 January for a second year.
Preaching on Monday, the Primate of Ukraine’s independent Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko), said that the festival coincided with the sixth anniversary of the granting of a “tomos of autocephaly” by the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I (News, 12 January 2024), proclaiming the Church’s “spiritual independence” as one of 15 self-governing Orthodox denominations.
The Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said that the new “year of hope” had begun with a “truly bloody week”, as towns and villages had come under “constant Russian attacks” and “merciless daily bombing”, and the small eastern town of Pokrovsk had held back a “huge Russian advance”.
Moscow, he said, had occupied barely 1500 square miles of Ukraine during 2024, for the loss of 420,000 troops. He welcomed the recent repatriation of 189 National Guard soldiers after “almost three years in Russian captivity”.
“Another year of Russian war crimes not only against the Ukrainian people, but also against their own people, is ending, as their insane rulers try to achieve political goals through military methods,” the Archbishop said in a national message.
“We thank the Lord and Ukraine’s armed forces that we are alive and have entered a new year — and we thank God for giving us new life and a new chance to do good, to love and defend our homeland and gain a just peace.”
The Pope, who has accepted an invitation to visit Ukraine this year, sent “warmest wishes” to Christian communities celebrating Christmas this week; but urged the international community on Sunday to “act firmly” to ensure that “humanitarian law is respected in conflicts”, with “no more striking schools and hospitals, no more hitting workplaces”.
The Ukrainian Culture Ministry reported at the weekend that 1255 cultural-heritage sites had been damaged across the country since the Russian invasion in February 2022. The sites included 613 religious buildings — more than half of which belonged to the Moscow-linked UOC.