The Days of Remembrance and Reconciliation, honoring the memory of the victims of the Second World War, are very difficult to celebrate, being in the vortex of the war forced upon us, defending ourselves from the cruel aggressor – the totalitarian regime of the Kremlin, losing our best brothers and sisters at the front, and in the rear – civilians, innocent victims of Russian terror, Metropolitan Epifaniy wrote on social media.
For us, the Days of Remembrance and Reconciliation are a reason to recall once again that you can never reconcile with evil! And also it’s about the fact that some learn the lessons of history “in their own way”, growing in their own impunity, self-aggrandizement, fanaticism, hatred, prejudice, and superiority over other peoples. That some, in contrast to the whole world, which prays “never again,” threaten: “we can do it again” and implement their threats in the most insidious, cruelest way.
On May 8, together with the European community, honoring the memory of everyone who at one time fought against Nazism, all the victims of the Second World War, we also honor those who became victims of the latest policy of Nazism – ruscism. Because the ideologues and adepts of the “Russian world” – be it the Kremlin tyrant, his henchmen, or his servants sporting military uniforms, suits, or even religious clothes – try to justify the evil they commit with outright lies and distortion of Christian values. They repeat the rhetoric of Nazism, which in a similar way once sought justification for its own crimes. But there will be no excuse for them! Because crimes against humanity have neither justifications nor statutes of limitations.
Today, as in the years of the Second World War, Ukraine is at war with the aggressor, with a neo-imperial, totalitarian dictatorship that imitates the worst practices of the past, embodying the misanthropic ideas of fascism and Nazism. It was Russia that destroyed peace and undermined security in the whole of Europe. So today we honor the memory of those who died in the war, those who bravely fought against anti-human ideologies.
We remember – because without the truth about the past, there will be no future. We unyieldingly defend Ukraine and all of Europe because we know how to value peace and know very well its high cost. Eternal memory to the victims of war.
