PRESS RELEASE WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., April 28, 2022 — The Orthodox Christian Laity (OCL) denounces the horrific and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military under the orders of President Putin and the attempt to bestow religious legitimacy to the war by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. The indiscriminate and unjustifiable bombing of innocent civilian population centers including schools and hospitals, the rapes, mass executions and war crimes committed by Russian soldiers have shocked the entire world. Millions have been forced to flee their homes as refugees from a brutal war in which Orthodox Christians have been ordered by…
Browsing: Patriarch Kirill
Source: The Pillar JD Flynn First, it is not yet Easter for most Christians living in Ukraine, where the Battle of Donbas is raging in the east, and in the west, the city of Lviv saw its first missile-strike casualties on Monday. Ukraine has defended Kyiv and the fighting has shifted, but the war is far from over. Amid the humanitarian and social crisis that will envelop Ukraine from years to come, there has also occasioned a serious ecclesiastical crisis for the 70% of Ukrainians who are Orthodox Christians. Orthodoxy in Ukraine has two hierarchies, and two sets of dioceses and…
Source: Religion News Service The letter to the Russian patriarch comes amid calls to expel him and the Russian Orthodox Church from the WCC. By Jack Jenkins (RNS) — The head of the World Council of Churches is urging Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, to call for a cease-fire in Ukraine as Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter this weekend. “People lost their trust and hope in politicians and in a possible peaceful negotiation and a ceasefire,” the Rev. Ioan Sauca, a Romanian Orthodox priest and acting general secretary of the World Council of Churches, wrote in a letter…
Source: The Washington Post Patriarch Kirill has angered many priests by echoing the language Vladimir Putin uses to justify the Ukraine invasion By Jeanne Whalen He leads his flock from a soaring, gilded cathedral built to celebrate Russia’s victory over Napoleon, where week after week the powerful head of the Russian Orthodox Church is working to ensure that the faithful are all in on their country’s invasion of Ukraine. Whether warning about the “external enemies” attempting to divide the “united people” of Russia and Ukraine, or very publicly blessing the generals leading soldiers in the field, Patriarch Kirill has become one…
Source: Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) Originally published on February 22, 2022 WRITTEN BY Donatienne Ruy, Director, Abshire-Inamori Leadership Academy Heather A. Conley Former Senior Vice President for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic; and Former Director, Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program Marlene Laruelle Director and Research Professor, George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Tengiz Pkhaladze Associate Professor and Head of the BA Program in Political Science, Georgian Institute of Public Affairs Elizabeth H. Prodromou Faculty Member and Faculty Director of the Initiative on Religion, Law, and Diplomacy, The Fletcher School at Tufts University Majda Ruge Senior Policy…
Source: Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew spoke again about the war in Ukraine as he welcomed, today, Thursday, April 7, 2022, a large group of students from the 1st and 4th Lyceum of Lamia, who were accompanied by His Eminence Metropolitan Symeon of Fthiotida, and the principals and teachers of their classes. “No problem is solved by war. War does not solve problems, I always say that; war adds new problems,” said His All-Holiness, who expressed the view that if the path of dialogue had been chosen, “they would definitely have found a solution.” Elsewhere…

Source: National Catholic Register COMMENTARY: That Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople would travel to Warsaw to stand alongside a Catholic bishop to call out the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill is altogether remarkable. by Father Raymond J. de Souza The aftershocks of the “ecclesial earthquake” were not long in coming. On Friday, Pope Francis consecrated Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. On Sunday, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople was in Warsaw. What connects the two events? Neither the Bishop of Rome nor the patriarch of the “New Rome” — Constantinople — take into account any longer possible objections from…
Source: The Tablet The Orthodox world is being shattered by the war in Ukraine. A close adviser to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew reflects frankly on the state of Orthodoxy before the invasion, and imagines how it needs to change if it is to have a future. By JOHN CHRYSSAVGIS On the Sunday of the first week of Great Lent, which this year began on 7 March, the Eastern liturgical cycle celebrates the Feast of Orthodoxy. Sometimes conceitedly called the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” it would be more accurate to describe it as the celebration of the “restoration of images”, for on this…
Source: Public Orthodoxy by Archpriest Denis J. M. Bradley His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon Members of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America Dear Archpastors: We[1] write as painfully concerned, truth–seeking, and truth–committed Orthodox Christians: we are chagrined clergy and lay members of the Orthodox Church in America, who as American citizens value religious and political freedom. Conscience compels us to speak. The unprovoked Russian military invasion and indiscriminate bombardment and levelling of Ukrainian cities have resulted in the violent deaths and maiming of thousands and the dreadful displacement of millions of innocent Ukrainian citizens, among them vulnerable non-combatants: women, children,…
Source: Daily Beast by A. Craig Copetas Beneath the gold onion domes of the Danilov Monastery a few miles south of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin’s chief shaman explains why Russia is hell-bent on destroying Ukraine. “If we see [Ukraine] as a threat, we have the right to use force to ensure the threat is eradicated,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill recently preached to his church’s 90 million faithful followers. “We have entered into a conflict which has not only physical but also metaphysical significance. We are talking about human salvation, something much more important than politics.” The wartime coalition between Putin and his patriarch is called symphonia,…
Source: Public Orthodoxy by Jaroslav Skira Suggestively linking a Russian Orthodox primate, an ideology, and genocide may seem provocative or sensationalist. For me, given the current unjustified Russian war on Ukraine, the connections between them are far from that. In this moment in our common history as a human family, ‘naming” a reality is utterly important here for assessing the horrific events in Ukraine and the ideology that is complicit in such violence against the very innocence that characterizes the people of Ukraine. Naming is a profoundly ethical choice. Genocide is not an abstract concept in this present moment for the…
Source: CNN By Delia Gallagher, CNN (CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin has given several explanations for his country’s war on Ukraine, and some are more plausible than others. They include stopping NATO’s advance towards Russia’s borders, protecting fellow Russians from “genocide” or the baseless claim of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. The top-ranking priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, meanwhile, has offered a very different reason for the invasion: gay pride parades. Patriarch Kirill said last week that the conflict is an extension of a fundamental culture clash between the wider Russian world and Western liberal values, exemplified by expressions of gay pride. Yet experts say that…