A LEADER of Ukraine’s Moscow-linked Orthodox Church (UOC) has condemned Patriarch Kirill of Moscow’s “selective compassion” towards war victims.
“Ukrainian media reported that our armed forces had struck a café in Khorly, in occupied Kherson, where Russian military personnel were stationed — people died and there was grief,” Metropolitan Yevlogiy (Gutchenko) of Sumy wrote in a social-media post.
“Kirill Gundayev rightly sent condolences, just as he has rightly spoken out in defence of suffering Christians in the Middle East. Yet this man persistently refuses to notice the suffering of Christians in Ukraine, maintaining his ungodly view that God’s commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’, doesn’t apply to Russian soldiers who kill Ukrainians.”
The Metropolitan published the message after the death of 27 people during a New Year alleged drone strike, which had been condemned by Patriarch Kirill as “a grave crime against human life” and “violation of the moral order”. He said that Patriarch Kirill had expressed “no sympathy” when 35 civilians had been killed and more than 100 had been injured in a Russian Palm Sunday air strike on a restaurant in Sumy last year.
He said that the Patriarch had also shown no remorse for the 47,000 civilians, including hundreds of children, who had killed and maimed since the 2022 invasion, and was clearly “betraying” his “former Ukrainian congregation” in an effort to please President Putin.
The exchange occurred as the Primate of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church welcomed the “very European” stance on the war being taken by Pope Leo XIV, as well as his new emphasis on the country’s constitution and greater readiness to consult Ukrainian Church leaders.
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said in a TV interview on Monday: “We have a very powerful Pope today, who doesn’t just talk of peace as if it were a cloud, but about peace based on principles of truth and justice.”
Praise for Pope Leo XIV also came from the RC Bishop of Odessa, Bishop Stanislav Shyrokoradiuk, whose port city has been repeatedly bombarded, leaving many of its one million inhabitants without water, electricity, light, and heating.
“We are very pleased with this Pope, who understands our situation much better than his predecessor, Francis”, Bishop Shyrokoradiuk told the Church Times. “He’s appealing for an end to the war in much stronger and healthier terms.”
The country’s independent Orthodox Church has celebrated the anniversary of its canonical recognition by the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, who welcomed a delegation from Ukraine’s independent OCU, under Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko), on Monday. He said that his decision to grant autocephaly, or independence, to the Church in January 2019 remained “firm and unchangeable” at a time when “a future peace for Ukraine” was being decided.