This year, it is impossible for any Ukrainian to fully rejoice over Easter because of the horrors that are unfolding in Mariupol at the Azovstal plant. As the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko noted in his Telegram channel, more than a thousand peaceful Mariupol residents and wounded Ukrainian defenders remain in a deadly trap of the Azovstal bunkers.
Ordinary people, including women and children, as well as soldiers, have been lying on the concrete floors for weeks, suffering from serious injuries, getting a whole bunch of infections. In addition, they found themselves in a terrible humanitarian catastrophe, because it is simply impossible to get access to food and water there due to the blockade imposed on the Russian occupiers.
All this confuses not only us, Ukrainians, but also the whole civilized world. Of course, Mariupol attracts the attention of all adequate people, regardless of their place of residence, nationality, or even religion. In particular, His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew after the Easter service called for opening evacuation corridors for those seeking to flee besieged Mariupol and immediately ceasing the war. These are the words of the Mother Church!
I would like to note that this was said by the One whom the Moscow Patriarchate and its supporters “christened” a heretic and schismatic, who, in their words, allegedly brought “unrest and schism into Ukraine.”
But what did the Moscow patriarch do? The one who claims that Ukraine is his canonical territory, and Ukrainians are his flock? I’ll tell you: he kissed and exchanged gifts with Putin for Easter in the Church of Christ the Savior. And in his speeches, he did not say a word about “his” disadvantaged flock, which suffers at the hands that Hundyaev himself shook on Easter.
Also on Easter, Cyril wished that every participant in the Easter service, including Putin, come out of the Church of Christ the Savior “a little different. To make us feel that everything that frightens us there, behind the walls of the temple, is not so terrible, all the difficulties we face are not so insurmountable, because God, the Risen Savior, is with us. And if God is with us, what power are we afraid of?”
The only question is how different Putin came out after this service if he continues to issue orders to kill innocent Ukrainians, keep the wounded and sick without water and food in dark and cold basements? Can the Risen Christ be with such monsters? The answer seems obvious: Christ is now in the bunkers of Azovstal and in the basements of besieged Mariupol. He is with those who suffer and languish today, not with those hypocrites who bless and design this suffering!
Where is your pastoral love, where is your father’s care? Where are those who wanted to go on a procession from Orikhiv to Mariupol, but never arrived? Against this background, these appeals look like just another showoff and a PR stunt based on human grief. “We appeal to everyone on whom it depends…,” Onufriy said in his address, as if he did not know on whom it depends. And these two, on whom it depends, Putin and Gundyaev, were together, in one location, on the same day when Onufriy wanted to take people out of Mariupol. Neither one mentioned Onufriy’s “bold” address, which appeared to be worth nothing, or those who, through these men’s fault, found themselves in hell in the very heart of Europe.
These are just loud words and statements with a void behind them. “Grace is scarce and love is running out” in the hearts of such ministers as Gundyaev and his allies. How can a priest who is called to carry the light and defend the truth consciously justify sin? How can a patriarch who aspires to world supremacy embrace the murderer and say to him, “Christ is risen”?
In general, after all the atrocities committed by the so-called liberators in Mariupol, Irpin, Bucha, and other cities – with Gundyaev’s blessing – he and his wards can no longer be referred to as Christians or even human beings. And no matter how magnificent the worship services, no matter how many temples they build, nothing can justify them in the eyes of God and in the eyes of children who have lost their parents. For all these crimes they will have to answer before the Incorruptible Judge. Although it seems that this has long been forgotten in the Kremlin and the Danilov Monastery…
Authored by Oleksandr Yefremenko
