The weekend is packed and I have an article to finish, but I couldn’t pass up drawing attention to the Russian Orthodox Church’s latest round of paranoid, hyperbolic criticism of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) and the independent Kievan Patriarchate (KP) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In a letter to the other local Orthodox churches which was posted on, and then later removed from, the Moscow Patriarchate’s official website, Patriarch Kirill offers up a litany of accusations against the UGCC and KP with nary a mention of his own Church’s activities in the recently (and probably illegally) annexed Crimea. Kirill is also silent on the fact his priests have actively supported separatist in east Ukraine and that Russian Orthodox churches have served as ammunition depots for the rebels. You can read the full hypocritical text here.
As always, pray for peace in Ukraine and the UGCC. Ask the Blessed Virgin and St. Nicholas — the Patron Saint of Ukraine’s Greek Catholics — for their intercession so that the Church of Christ may continue to prosper and grow in the lands of the Christian East.
