Patriarch Kirill I, on his first official visit to Ukraine as leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, has arrived in the heart of the western part of the country, which has been a long-standing source of tension with Moscow.
Moscow Patriarch, in Ukraine, reiterates unity call in face of divisions
Moscow (ENI). Patriarch Kirill I, on his first official visit to Ukraine as leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, has arrived in the heart of the western part of the country, which has been a long-standing source of tension with Moscow.
Russian and Ukrainian news agencies reported that the Moscow Patriarch was greeted in Rivne, a regional capital in Western Ukraine, on 3 August by supporters from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, and by opponents from the breakaway Kiev Patriarchate, which does not recognise Moscow.
Adherents of the Kiev Patriarchate carried signs with slogans such as, “The Russian Orthodox Church is the agent of Moscow’s empire.”
Kirill acknowledged both his supporters and his opponents in his address to the crowd gathered by Rivne’s Cathedral of the Holy Resurrection, which has been a focus of conflict between adherents of the two groups.
His first words to the crowd, the RIA Novosti news agency reported, were “Christ is Risen”. He compared parishioners of the church that is faithful to the Moscow Patriarchate to catacomb Christians of the early centuries of Christianity.
“Preserve the Orthodox faith, in spite of all divisions, preserve your unity, because in unity is spiritual strength,” said Kirill, according to www.patriarchia.ru, an official Web site of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Moscow Patriarch was reiterating a recurrent theme of his 27 July to 5 August visit to Ukraine by calling for unity in the face of divisions that have shaken the church there since the collapse of communism.
The Orthodox Church in Ukraine divided after the fall of the Soviet Union, with several different churches now in existence, including the one that comes under the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Kiev Patriarchate that is not recognised by other Orthodox churches.
The trip has been watched closely as a reflection of Russian-Ukrainian relations, which have been further complicated by the financial crisis. The visit is also seen as a demonstration of Kirill’s influence as a political player, although he and his aides have stressed that the visit is pastoral.
In recent years, the Kiev Patriarchate, with the support of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, has been calling for the independence, or autocephaly, of the entire Orthodox church in Ukraine.
In comments made while in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, however, Kirill said that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church already functions as an independent church and that formal autocephaly at this time would be detrimental to church unity.
Kirill arrived in western Ukraine on 3 August after his scheduled arrival the previous evening was postponed amid a confusing ping-pong of blame between Moscow Patriarchate officials and Ukrainian authorities over the sudden cancellation and its equally abrupt reversal.
The Patriarch had come from Crimea, which marked another controversial stop on his tour of the country. On 2 August, he presided at a liturgy in Kherson, a historic Orthodox centre near Sevastopol, the port that serves as the base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which Ukraine would like Russia to evacuate.
In a wreath-laying ceremony at a Second World War monument in Sevastopol he called the Russian and Ukrainian naval representatives at the ceremony, “brothers in faith, heirs of the Holy Equal-to-the Apostles Prince Vladimir”.
He was referring to the Kievan prince, who adopted Orthodoxy from Byzantium in AD988 in an event that is celebrated as the beginning of Christianity in Russia.
“And today it is my fervid prayer that never and under no circumstances should brothers ever take aim at each other, that never and under any circumstances the hand of one be raised against another, because nothing divides brothers so much as spilled blood,” said Patriarch Kirill.
During his visit Kirill also stressed the dangers of consumer culture. But his comments set off a storm in the Russian blogosphere and Ukrainian media after a photograph of him raising a cross to bless believers during his visit appeared to show him wearing a Breguet watch. A Ukrainian Web site reported that watches of the model pictured cost approximately 30 000 euros (US$43 000).
Tags: Church Life