Ukrainian Church leaders have condemned the destruction of Odesa’s Orthodox cathedral, a Unesco World Heritage Site, during a wave of weekend missile strikes against the port city, as reports circulated that the Pope could soon meet Patriarch Kirill of Russia.
“The people who went to pray in this cathedral are crying today and we should sympathise with them, since a Russian rocket struck not just the sanctuary of their temple, but their very hearts,” said Major Archbishop Svetoslav Shevchuk, the head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church.
“What did God wish to say with this tragedy – to the top of the Russian Orthodox Church, to Russian criminals and to the Moscow Patriarchate’s Ukrainian followers? I do not yet know, because the actions of these criminals reflect not God’s logic, but the devil’s.”
The Archbishop was reacting to the Sunday night raids on Odesa, in which one of 19 Russian cruise missiles slammed into the Transfiguration Cathedral, owned by Ukraine’s Moscow-linked Orthodox Church, completely wrecking the late 18th century building.
The destruction of the cathedral, which was largely destroyed in the 1930s under the communist dictatorship of Josif Stalin, but later rebuilt and rededicated in 2010 by Patriarch Kirill, was also condemned as “outrageous” by Unesco’s director-general, Audrey Azoulet. She said a mission would be sent to Odesa for a “preliminary damage assessment”, but also warned that Russia had violated its international obligations to protect the cultural heritage and would be liable to war crime charges.
Meanwhile, the Catholic bishop of Kyiv-Zhytomyr said he had personally seen some of at least two dozen other significant buildings damaged in the overnight attacks while on a home visit to Odesa, adding that he was grateful to Ukraine’s air defences for preventing even greater destruction.
“The historic centre of Odesa was eagerly visited every summer by tourists from all over the world, including Russians who are now destroying what their ancestors built”, Bishop Vitaliy Kryvytskyi said in a Facebook post. “People of different nationalities always got along, and I'm proud that foreigners are treated with respect here. However, it seems to me it will now take a very long time for Odesa’s inhabitants to overcome their hatred of Russians.”
Russia’s Orthodox Church reprinted a defence ministry statement on its main website, blaming the cathedral’s destruction on mishandled Ukrainian defence measures, as Patriarch Kirill, preaching on Sunday at Ramenki, urged his country’s troops to maintain “patience and courage” during their continuing assault on Ukraine.
However, in a bitter statement, Odesa’s Moscow-linked Orthodox archbishop said the Patriarch had blessed the Russian army as it “perpetrated excesses”, and had now “completely destroyed the unity of Holy Rus”, adding that his Church had “completely withdrawn” its subordination to Moscow in May 2022.
“Because of your personal ambitions, you have lost the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – each rocket that arrives today on the territory of Ukraine is perceived by its inhabitants as your blessing on their children,” Archbishop Viktor (Bykov) of Artsyz told Kirill in a message on Monday.
“We condemn the Russian Federation’s insane aggression against our independent country, the barbaric seizure of our dioceses in the east and south of Ukraine, and repression and oppression meted out in Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories.”
The bitter exchanges took place as Italy’s La Repubblica daily reported that the Pope’s humanitarian envoy, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, planned to visit China as the “next station” of his peace mission, after delivering a letter from the Pope to US President Joe Biden at White House talks on 18 July.
The Italian Bishops’ Conference president, who also visited Kyiv and Moscow in June, met senators and officials from the US Commission of Security and Co-operation in Europe during his three-day Washington DC stopover, as well as holding talks with US Church leaders.
On Sunday, Russia’s TASS news agency said the Pope had invited Patriarch Kirill to meet him at a Moscow airport at the start or end of his upcoming 31 August-4 September visit to Mongolia, although this had not been confirmed by the Vatican earlier this week.
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