CHURCH leaders around the world expressed solidarity with Ukraine on the anniversary of its independence this week. At the same time, Russia continued with missile strikes and front-line assaults on the country irrespective of peace talks.
In a video message on Sunday, the Archbishop of York said that he was praying for Ukrainians who had been made homeless or forced to flee, as well as for Ukrainian servicepeople and church leaders. “I pray that the Lord of all, who gave himself up to death so that we might live, will bless you as you face the challenges of war.
“The cause of the people of Ukraine is close to the hearts of so many people in the UK — my own Church of England, through its General Synod, has clearly signalled its strong support for a just and a lasting peace” (News, 1 March 2024).
An annual “prayer breakfast” was held in Kyiv the next day, attended by more than 350 guests from 50 countries. In a message to the gathering, Pope Leo — who also wrote directly to President Zelensky on the anniversary — said that he was “begging Almighty God to stop the war and grant Ukraine a just and lasting peace.
“I pray to God to protect the daughters and sons of Ukraine, who suffer daily from inhuman bombings and attacks. I also ask the Lord to hasten the return home of civilian and military prisoners, and of children deported or illegally separated from their families, to heal wounded families.”
At the breakfast, President Zelensky thanked his country’s supporters “from various faith communities and different continents” for “spreading truth about the war”. The current “battle between good and evil” would give way to an “enduring peace”, he said.
Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991. More than 90 per cent of voters backed the move in a referendum that year.
Speaking on Sunday on behalf of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Metropolitan Emmanuel (Adamakis) of Chalcedon said that the international community had a “moral duty” to support Ukraine with “concrete actions, not just words”.
The Primate of Ukraine’s independent Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko), urged Ukrainians to continue “protecting, strengthening and developing” their “earthly homeland” as “unique, separate, endowed with its own language and culture, and settled in its own land”.
The Primate of the Moscow-linked Orthodox Church in Ukraine (UOC), Metropolitan Onufriy (Berezovsky), marked Sunday’s anniversary with a liturgy at the Pechersk-Lavra monastery, Kyiv, saying only that he hoped that Ukrainians would “be victorious over ourselves and over all adversaries, visible and invisible”. He has also rejected an order to prove that his Church has severed ties with the Moscow Patriarchate.
The Glavkom agency in Ukraine reported on Tuesday that the Abbot of the UOC’s Holy Cross Monastery, Khmelnytskyi, Archimandrite Iosaf (Horkavchuk), had been charged with the murder, earlier this month, of a Ukrainian soldier.
Archbishop Alexei (Trader) of Sitka & Alaska, who exchanged icons with President Vladimir Putin during the latter’s 15 August summit with President Trump, requested forgiveness at the weekend for the “confusion and pain” that the images had caused.
