UKRAINIAN Church leaders have condemned the shooting of a former parliamentary speaker, Andriy Parubiy; and the World Council of Churches has accused Moscow of destroying peace hopes through its intensified attacks on the country.
“Parubiy was a true patriot who played a key role in the public and state life of Ukraine,” the Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said. “We strongly condemn this audacious crime against the Ukrainian people.
“We expect law-enforcement agencies to conduct a comprehensive and objective investigation — only fair justice and punishment for all those behind this can prevent similar tragedies in future.”
Mr Parubiy, who co-led Ukraine’s 2013-14 pro-Western “Revolution of Dignity” and chaired its Verkhovna Rada, was shot in Lviv on Saturday.
The head of Ukraine’s independent Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko), recalled the part Mr Parubiy had played in obtaining the OCU’s “Tomos of Autocephaly” in January 2019. This had enabled the country to “realise its age-old dream” of religious communities away “from the power of Russian Church structures”, he said.
The messages were delivered as Moscow launched overnight assaults across Ukraine, two weeks after President Putin’s Alaska peace summit with Donald Trump. European Union and British Council offices were damaged in a strike on Kyiv, which left two dozen dead.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) said in a statement that it was “appalled” by Moscow’s “escalation of attacks”, adding that the strike on Kyiv, with 31 missiles and 598 drones, had also killed several children.
“The people of Ukraine and many in the international community have been hoping and praying for signs of an end to this terrible conflict,” the statement signed by the general secretary, the Revd Professor Jerry Pillay, said.
“President Putin seems intent on destroying hopes for peace. The WCC calls on him to stop these attacks . . . and bring Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion to an end.”
Ukraine’s Council of Churches and Religious Organisations (UCCRO) said that the latest attacks had exposed Russia’s “criminal, genocidal policy”, and expressed “profound gratitude” to Christians who maintained “unwavering support” for the Ukrainian people.
“Any support now extended to the Russian Federation is, in fact, support for murderers and criminals, and carries with it undeniable moral responsibility . . . Money earned through business with Russia today is stained with the blood of innocent victims, and that blood cries out to heaven for just retribution,” it said.
On Sunday, the Pope called for an “immediate ceasefire and serious commitment to dialogue”.
In an address in St Peter’s Square, he said that he was renewing his “closeness” to Ukrainians in the wake of the attacks. He called on the world community not to “give in to indifference”.
Ukraine’s State Service for Freedom of Conscience has ruled that the Moscow-linked Orthodox Church’s Kyiv Metropolis is affiliated with Russian Orthodoxy, which opens the way to the cancellation of its property leases under a new law.
The ruling has been denounced as “lawless and grotesque” by a Russian Synod official, Vakhtang Kipshidze, who branded it “another attempt to pressure the canonical Church of Ukraine”.