THE Primate of Ukraine’s independent Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko), has urged Christians worldwide to speak out against Russian missile attacks on civilian targets across the country, after President Putin insisted in a Christmas message that Moscow’s invading forces were acting “as if by the command of the Lord”.
“As Ukraine celebrated Epiphany and the Russian state marked Christmas, new crimes against humanity were being committed by the Kremlin through acts of missile terror,” the Metropolitan said.
“We ask the world’s religious and moral leaders to raise their voices and expose Russian war crimes — this deliberate destruction of homes and civilian life-support infrastructures is aimed at plunging Ukraine into cold and darkness.”
The Metropolitan was reacting to the latest prolonged wave of Russian air strikes, which led to the deaths of at least a dozen people, and to extensive power outages in Kharkiv, Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, and other cities.
The attacks intensified during last week’s Orthodox Christmas, celebrated in Russia following the Julian calendar, on 7 January, despite calls for a temporary truce by many religious leaders.
In a social-media post, Metropolitan Epiphany voiced “deep gratitude and respect” to doctors and emergency workers who were doing “everything possible and impossible” to help those affected throughout Ukraine. The attacks should “cause disgust and condemnation not only among Christians, but among all people of good will”, he said.
The Pope, in an address to diplomats last Friday, also condemned attacks on homes, hospitals, and energy supplies as a “serious violation of international humanitarian law”; and he told an audience in St Peter’s Square on Sunday that the latest “particularly severe” Russian strikes were “taking a heavy toll on the civilian population . . . as the cold weather grows harsher”.
In a national message last week, however, President Putin said that Christmas celebrations were “illuminating the world with the light of kindness and love”, enabling millions to join joyfully “in the patriotic spiritual traditions passed down from generation to generation”.
In a separate address after a Christmas service in St George the Victorious, Moscow, he said that “Russian warriors” were carrying out their “mission of defending the Fatherland” as if “by the command of the Lord”.
“People in Russia have always treated their warriors as those who, acting at God’s command, carry out this holy mission,” the President said in the address published on his website.
“I have no doubt that our joy is shared today by brothers and representatives of other religions — we all rejoice together in our common victories, knowing that victory is always one for all.”