The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has warned that war crimes are being committed daily in his country, as the Pope deplored the bloodshed in his strongest statement to date and Russia’s Orthodox patriarch faced growing condemnation and isolation for backing the bloody invasion.
“In the temporarily occupied territories, there are real crimes against humanity. We receive daily news of humanitarian catastrophes, murders, looting and rape,” said Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych.
“A real genocide is taking place in Mariupol, as people die not just from enemy weapons, but also from hatred.... But even there, in the south of Ukraine, civilians are protesting against the occupying power and showing that our occupied cities are still Ukraine. They want to live in an independent, free Ukrainian state.”
The Greek Catholic archbishop issued the message as the United Nations confirmed that more than ten million Ukrainians had now fled their homes to escape the invasion, launched on 24 February by President Vladimir Putin, and as Ukrainian officials rejected offers of safe conduct for surrendering citizens of Mariupol, where at least 2500 civilians have died and others are reported facing deportation to Russia.
Meanwhile, the president of Ukraine’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference said no Ukrainians had expected another “unnecessary and unjust war” in the twenty-first century, but welcomed the readiness of priests and nuns to remain in their communities, providing humanitarian help in communication with their bishops and superiors.
“We've no idea how this war will develop – where there is fighting and bombing and everything is destroyed, people will have no reason to come back,” Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv told journalists in neighbouring Poland, which is currently home to around four million Ukrainian refugees and migrant workers.
“But priests are especially needed in times of disaster and war, since life goes on, children are born, people form relationships and the sacraments of Eucharist, penance and anointing are needed.”
Russian naval forces shelled residential areas on Monday in the Black Sea port of Odessa, while at least eight Ukrainians were reported dead when a shopping centre and housing blocks came under fire in the capital Kyiv, as the city mayor, Vitali Klitschko, announced a new 36-hour curfew.
In a speech last Friday to his church's Supreme Council, Russia’s Orthodox patriarch, Kirill, said his online conversation on 16 March with the Pope and the Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury had “revealed a high level of consent and understanding”, and had proved positive in “forming as far as possible a common attitude to the situation in Ukraine”.
However, in an apparent rebuff to the Patriarch's claims, a Vatican statement said Pope Francis had rejected any idea of a “holy war or just war” and warned that those paying the price for the Ukraine conflict were “the people, the Russian soldiers and those who are bombed and die”.
Meanwhile, in his strongest condemnation of the war, the Pope told Rome pilgrims on Sunday there could be no justification for the “violent aggression against Ukraine” and daily “senseless massacre”, and urged the international community to commit to ending the “inhuman and sacrilegious cruelty”.
Francis said he had visited Rome’s church-owned Bambino Gesu paediatric hospital on Saturday, and seen some of the 50 wounded and maimed Ukrainian refugee children being treated there.
“So many children and fragile people left to die under the bombs without being able to receive help and find safety even in the air raid shelters. This is all inhuman,” the Pope added. “Indeed, it is also sacrilegious because it goes against the sacredness of human life, especially against defenceless human life which must be respected and protected, not eliminated. Let us not forget it is inhuman and sacrilegious cruelty.”
Leaders of eight main Orthodox churches have so far directly condemned Patriarch Kirill’s moral and religious endorsement of the Russian invasion, including Patriarch Elias II of Georgia, who accused Kirill last week of “closing his eyes and mouth” to Russian atrocities.
Fresh denunciations of Russian aggression also came over the weekend from Orthodox leaders linked to the Moscow Patriarchate in Estonia and Latvia, as well as in Lithuania, where the church’s leader, Metropolitan Innocent Vasilyev, said Patriarch Kirill’s “political statements about the war” were his “personal opinion” only, adding that his own church would now “strive for greater church independence”.
Meanwhile, 15 of the 53 eparchies, or dioceses, belonging to Ukraine’s Moscow-linked Orthodox church have publicly stopped commemorating Kirill in their liturgies, with more parishes announcing their transfer last week to the new independent Ukrainian church headed by Metropolitan Epiphaniy Dumenko.
Preaching on Sunday, Metropolitan Epiphaniy described the Russian state as “a personification of darkness, an empire of evil, a tyranny of slavery”, as proved by the “destruction and murder” being inflicted on Ukraine.
“What is happening here now is not just a war. It is a struggle of darkness against light, death with life, slavery against freedom”, the 43-year-old church leader added. “But we can be sure once again that the evil planned by Moscow will not succeed. For the Lord promises curses and condemnations for servants of the devil.”
Addressing Israel’s Knesset parliament on Sunday, the Jewish-born President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described the Russian action as “not just a military operation”, but “a large-scale and vile war to destroy our people”. Patriarch Kirill asked Russian Orthodox church members last week to pray for the Virgin Mary's intercession for peace during Lent, in what was widely seen as countering the Pope's plan to dedicate Russian and Ukraine symbolically to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on 25 March.
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