Moscow Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev) has claimed that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has become a “tragedy for Ukraine,” adding that the head of the ROCinU, Metropolitan Onufriy (Berezovsky), allegedly preserves unity of Ukraine because he belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church spoke about this in an interview to the Russian propaganda TV channel Russia 24, the press service of the Moscow Patriarchate reports.
“The greatest tragedy is that Ukraine is divided on religious grounds, and this division did not begin today or in our time. The emergence of Uniatism was the first such blow to Ukraine, then there were the splits of the 20th century, and no one will convince me that this is the implementation of a plan aimed at weakening the spiritual life of Ukraine, breaking the unity of historical Russia,” said Moscow Patriarch Kirill.
Despite the fact that the ROC and the ROCinU are the only ones who severed Eucharistic ties with the Local Churches that recognized the OCU, Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev) is convinced that “the current policy aimed at dividing the Orthodox Church is really tied to the political situation because no theological considerations can explain the attempts to split the Orthodox Church, to weaken it.”
Indeed, the ROC had no theological basis for severing the Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but it did anyway. That is why the head of the ROC shifts blame and turns a blind eye to the fact that he, in his own words, condemns himself. The Moscow Patriarch also seems to not care that the ROC in Ukraine is intensifying divisions in Ukrainian society as it draws Ukrainians to an alliance with the aggressor power – instead, the ROC head alleges that it’s the OCU that is an enemy of the Orthodoxy and a tragedy for Ukraine, while ROCinU Metropolitan Onuftiy allegedly “retains unity” because he remains faithful to the Moscow Patriarchate.
Kirill is convinced that it’s part of the ROC in Ukraine, led by Onufriy, “preserves the canonical system.”
Kirill even called the goal of the split in Orthodoxy: “The only goal is to drive them as far away from Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church as possible, but this is a political goal, not a spiritual one.”
Interestingly, Kirill does not mention or comment on the goals the Moscow hierarchs pursued when they proclaimed a separate autocephalous church, which had previously been part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The head of the ROC fails to accept that Ukraine, like Russia, can have its own autocephalous and independent Local Orthodox Church.
