February 21, 2014
Moscow: Epistle of His Holiness, Patriarch Kyrill, to the Entirety
of the Russian Orthodox Church in Connection with Events in Ukraine
His Holiness Kyrill, Patriarch of Moscow & All Russia, released an
epistle to the entirety of the Russian Orthodox Church in connection
with recent events in Ukraine. With the blessing of the First
Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, His Eminence, Metropolitan
Hilarion, the attached
special petitions and prayer are to be read at all divine
services for Meatfare Soul Saturday and Sunday in the parishes and
monasteries of the Eastern American Diocese.
Reverend
archpastors and pastors, dear brothers and sisters – children of the
Church!
It is with dismay, pain, and alarm that I have followed and continue
to follow the events in Kiev and other cities of Ukraine. Kiev is
the birthplace of a great Orthodox civilization, which united the
peoples of Holy Rus’. Kiev is the city of the shared font of our
Baptism, the 1025th anniversary of which we only recently celebrated
with all of the Local Orthodox Churches. Kiev is a city particularly
dear to me, a place I have visited often, a city that I love and
know well. It is with unbearable pain that I receive word of the
many victims who have died in this holy place, of the hundreds
wounded, of the unrest in several of Ukraine’s regions.
The entirety of our multinational Church prays zealously for peace
in the Ukrainian land, for the cessation of civil strife. Our
brothers and sisters in Ukraine are currently undergoing one of the
most dramatic moments in their entire history. The future fate of
the Ukrainian people depends on the outcome of these events. So far,
glory to God, the scenario of a civil war has been avoided. But such
a scenario may still come to pass. And it will come to pass, if the
Lord allows the people to fall away from the moral commandments
given by God, and from the Christian heritage of Ukraine, if her
citizens renounce respect for themselves, for one another, and for
the law.
I would like to thank those representatives of the Ukrainian
episcopate and clergy, who – amidst cries and slogans of every
possible persuasion ‒ found within themselves the strength to
consistently call the opposing factions to peace and brotherly love;
those who firmly stand for the right of Ukrainians to live in
accordance with their faith and piety, for the preservation of
Ukraine’s traditional and religious values, the source of which is
the Kievan Baptismal font, which determined the future development
of the civilization of the peoples of Holy Rus’.
Mourning with all my heart the victims, commiserating with their
loved ones, and empathizing with the wounded, I ask the pastors and
children of the Russian Orthodox Church to lift up their prayers to
our Lord Jesus Christ and His Most Pure Mother. Let us pray for the
repose of our departed brothers and sisters, for the healing of the
wounded and sick, for the softening of embittered hearts, for the
cessation of discord and strife in Ukraine, and that the Lord might
send down upon all of us the spirit of love, peace, forgiveness, and
brotherly love in Christ!
+KYRILL
Patriarch of Moscow & All Russia
Media Office of the Eastern
American Diocese
