Moscow (AsiaNews) - After three months of protests and violence, over the past two days Ukraine's president was deposed and new elections called. However the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Kirill, only yesterday, 23 February, launched an appeal for the Church unity and peace in Ukraine at the end of the Sunday liturgy, celebrated in the church of San Michele in Troporevo, in the Russian capital.
The primate - reports Interfax
news agency - knelt at the altar and prayed to God to grant His light to minds
"clouded by violence".
"For
20 years the land of Ukraine has been subjected to political struggles, the
result of which was the tragic division of our Church", the Patriarch said
, referring to the division of the Orthodox Ukrainians into three different
realities, the result of the troubled political history of
the country in the last century, still caught in a fragile balance between
autonomy and ties to its Russian neighbor . These
realities are the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchate (not recognized
by other churches and opposed by Moscow), the Ukrainian Orthodox Church -
Moscow Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (close to
Constantinople) .
"In recent years there have
been attempts to use political power to resolve the question of the Church in
Ukraine - said Kirill - today, I address all the Ukrainian people: political
power should not interfere in ecclesiastical matters". "Brute
force can not solve the problems of the Church. Unity can not be achieved
through violence - he added -The Church alone, without relying on external factors,
needs to resolve these issues".
"Today,
as in the past, I turn to our brothers and sisters in Ukraine who are in schism,
with a call for unity - he concluded - But not that unity brought about by the change
in the political situation, not that unity brought about in reaction to
violence, but the unity that pours forth from a sincere desire to return to the
canons, without which the Church can not exist".
Kirill's
appeal was then read in all the churches of the Patriarchate of Moscow. At
the end of the liturgy, prayers were said for the dead (88) from the 48 hours
of violence in Kiev. Yesterday,
there were kiosks and bouquets of flowers laid in memory of the fallen, the
"martyrs " on the streets and Maidan square (see photo).
The uprising in Ukraine has seen an unprecedented alliance between the churches of the country. Priests and monks took to the streets to pray and attempted mediation between police and protesters, including opposition and the government.
Political situation
So
far, Russia has limited itself to carefully following the situation and many
wonder what President Vladimir Putin's real reaction will be. The Russian head of state had signed an
agreement for substantial economic support to prevent the collapse of the
country with the now former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Obsevers wonder if he was waiting for the
closing of the Games in Sochi, February 23 , to act. Meanwhile,
due to the deterioration of the
situation" in the former Soviet republic, Moscow has recalled its ambassador
to Kiev for consultations. The
Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, on the phone with U.S. Secretary of State ,
John Kerry, complained that the opposition has not adhered to the peace
agreement signed with the government and European mediators, of having
essentially wrested power and of maintaining power through the
use of violence. The
new interim president, the speaker of the Rada (Parliament), Oleksandr Turcinov
- close to the newly released, Yulia Tymoshenko - has warned that the Kremlin
will have to abide by Ukraine's "European choice". Kiev
- said Turcinov - intends to resume the path of integration with Brussels blocked
since 24 November, when Yanukovych renounced the association pact and accepted ($
15 billion) aid from Moscow. Turcinov
- who gave deputies until February 25 to find a majority and form a government
of national unity - said he was ready for dialogue with the leaders of Russia,
but on the basis of equal and good neighborly relations. Tymoshenko
has already ruled out wanting to return to the office of prime minister,
instead indicating that she is likely to run for president in the early elections
on 25 May. But
many, even among the Maidan protesters, see her as being too tied to old
patterns of power.
Abandoned by his Party of Regions
and Russian ally - who indirectly criticizes his weak management of the crisis-
Yanukovych seems stuck at the border, after which his men tried in vain to hire
a charter plane for him flee abroad.
Today,
the head of EU diplomacy, Catherine Ashton, is expected in Kiev, where she will
meet the protagonists of the Maidan revolution and "discuss EU support for
a lasting solution to the political crisis and measures to stabilize the
economy" as reported in a
statement. Moscow,
for its part has announced the freezing of future aid, as it waits for the
formation of the new government.