Russia's Patriarch Kirill Says Church Not Involved In Political Conflicts In Ukraine

The Orthodox Church has dissociated itself from the political conflicts in Ukraine, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill said on Saturday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th November, 2021) The Orthodox Church has dissociated itself from the political conflicts in Ukraine, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill said on Saturday.

"We do not participate in this fight, our church, our Orthodox people are not responsible for this nightmare. The responsibility rests with the politicians that have allowed a conflict among their own people. And a divided nation, a divided house are very dangerous," the Patriarch said in an interview with the Rossiya 1 broadcaster on his 75th anniversary.

The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) leader lauded the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Onufriy, for not allowing the Church to be drawn into political confrontation and refusing to engage in the power struggle in the country.

Patriarch Kirill further lamented the split in the Ukrainian religious society, calling it a great tragedy that has "started a pendulum of hatred, division and confrontation" that even Kiev seems to be regretting now.

In this light, the ROC leader criticized Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople for recognizing the 2018 Ukrainian schism and stressed that it was done under external political influence and due to personal failings of the Constantinople patriarch.

He condemned Bartholomew for thinking of himself as not the first among equals, as Orthodox ecclesiology establishes, but as the sole leader of the Orthodox world.

The schism itself serves exclusively political goals, since "no theological considerations can explain the attempts to divide the Orthodox Church, to weaken it," according to Patriarch Kirill. In the current political context, it has served to drive Ukraine away from Russia and break the unity of historic Ruthenia, he added.

In 2018, the creation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was initiated by then-President Petro Poroshenko and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. The new Church was granted autocephaly, the status of an autonomous Christian Church. The Russian Orthodox Church severed the relations with the Constantinople Patriarchate and other spiritual leaders who recognized the split.