PATRIARCH KIRILL URGES PRAYER FOR PEACE ON "RUSSIAN LAND"
Interfax-Religiia, 27 February 2022
Patriarch of Moscow and all-Rus Kirill, in his Sunday sermon after the liturgy in the church of Christ the Savior, declared that he is praying for peace on Russian land, while as "Russian land" he specified Ukraine, Belorussia, and Russia.
"May the Lord preserve the Russian land! When I say 'Russian,' I am using the ancient expression from 'Tale of Bygone Years,' where the Russian land came from, which includes Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia, and other tribes and peoples," the patriarch said, addressing parishioners.
He also urged all believers of the Russian Orthodox Church, both in the church and at home, to pray for the restoration of peace in all these lands and thereby to prevent placing a barrier between Ukrainians and Russians "stained with the blood of brothers."
"God forbid that the current political situation in fraternal Ukraine, dear to us, would be directed to allowing evil forces, which have always fought against the unity of Rus and the Russian church, to gain the upper hand," the patriarch continued.
In the opinion of the first hierarch, the guarantee of such a brotherhood is a united Orthodox church, which in Ukraine is represented by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church headed by Metropolitan Onufry. "May the Lord preserve our church in unity. May the Lord protect the peoples who are in the united space of the Russian Orthodox Church from internecine strife," the head of the Russian church said.
He considers that "we must not allow dark and hostile external forces to mock us. It is necessary to do everything in order to maintain peace between our peoples and at the same time protect our common historic fatherland from all those external actions that could destroy this unity." (tr. by PDS, posted 1 March 2022)
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