Leo makes ‘urgent’ plea for peace in Ukraine four years after invasion

‘I invite everyone to join in prayer for the embattled people of Ukraine and for all those who suffer due to this war, that the long-awaited gift of peace may shine upon our days.’

Peace in Ukraine “cannot be postponed” Pope Leo said, ahead of the fourth anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion.

Speaking after the Angelus in St Peter’s Square on Sunday, the Pope said peace was “an urgent necessity that must find a home in our hearts and be translated into responsible decisions”.

“My heartfelt thoughts remain focused on the tragic situation unfolding before the eyes of the whole world: so many victims, so many lives and families shattered, such immense destruction, such unspeakable suffering,” he said.

During the general audience on 18 February, Leo met a group of relatives of Ukrainian prisoners of war and other missing persons, accompanied by Ukraine’s Ambassador to the Holy See Andrii Yurash.

“Every war is truly a wound inflicted upon the entire human family [which] leaves in its wake death, devastation and a trail of pain that marks generations,” he continued in his Angelus address.

“I invite everyone to join in prayer for the embattled people of Ukraine and for all those who suffer due to this war and every conflict in the world, that the long-awaited gift of peace may shine upon our days.”

On Monday the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations (UCCRO) issued an appeal after four years of “heroic resistance” since the invasion on 24 February 2022 – a date Ukraine marks as a National Day of Prayer – as well as 12 years of wider conflict with Russia.

It said the war had “caused the deaths of thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians [and] the brutal violation of human rights and freedoms in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, including targeted religious persecution”, as well as “the abduction of Ukrainian children, horrific treatment of military personnel and civilian prisoners, the destruction of cities and civilian infrastructure in our country and … the largest migration crisis in Europe in the twenty-first century”.

Nevertheless, the UCCRO said that by resistance “the foundations were laid for future victory and the establishment of a just and lasting peace for Ukraine”.

“At the core of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and its crimes against humanity lies the chauvinistic and misanthropic ideology of the ‘Russian world’, the creation and spread of which is facilitated by the Moscow Patriarchate and other major Russian religious centres together with the Kremlin political regime,” it continued.

“Once again, we call on intergovernmental institutions, international religious organisations, and individual Churches and religious leaders to expose and condemn the ideology of the ‘Russian world’ as one that promotes and justifies a ‘holy war’ and other crimes against humanity.”

In Rome, preaching at the first session of the Curia’s Lenten retreat on Sunday evening, Bishop Erik Varden OCSO of Trondheim said Christians must insist on Christ’s message of peace “when the Gospel is sometimes deployed as a weapon in the culture wars”.

“Instrumentalisations of Christian language and signs should be challenged, not just by wan outrage, but by teaching the terms of authentic spiritual warfare. For Christians peace is not a promise of ease; it is a condition for a transformed society,” he said.

“It is timely to articulate the radicality of Christian ‘peace’ while we remind ourselves and others of the truth in St John Climacus’s words: ‘There is no greater obstacle to the presence of the Spirit in us than anger.’”

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