PATRIARCH KIRILL: TO DENY BROTHERHOOD OF RUSSIANS AND UKRAINIANS IS IMPERMISSIBLE
Patriarch of Moscow and all-Rus Kirill considers it impermissible to deny the brotherhood of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples who live in the spaces of a united historic Rus and to mobilize people "for the battle of brothers of the same blood and the same faith."
News media previously reported that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared that "we do not have any kind of fraternal peoples in time of war." Poroshenko said: "There is the unique Ukrainian people who are following Europe, and there is the Russian people, who are in profound crisis."
The patriarch, who on Sunday, the day of the commemoration of the holy prelate Peter, led a procession of the cross from the Dormition cathedral of the Kremlin to the High Monastery of St. Peter (Vysoko-Petrovskii monastyr), recalled in his address to believers that the holy prelate Peter, who 700 years ago transferred the center of administration of the Russian Orthodox Church to Moscow, "devoted all his energies to preserving the unity of the Russian land" and it is not by chance that he bore the title "Metropolitan of Kiev, Moscow, and all-Rus."
"Recalling his memory and his sacred name, we recall in the first place the achievement of the preservation of the unity of Rus, historic Russia. And it is not by chance that we remember him as the Metropolitan of Kiev, Moscow, and all-Rus, because this title unites all of Rus and this title of unconditional historic and spiritual authority challenges everyone who today, following the path of the fratricidal appanage principalities, try to divide the people and interpret it as internecine warfare and who dare to call one part of Rus its 'enemy' and to mobilize people for the battle of brothers of the same blood and the same faith," the patriarch said.
He noted that Rus had experienced something similar earlier, and the holy prelate Peter also "was a witness to how appanage princes, urged on from outside, engaged in mortal combat, weakening themselves and their people."
The head of the RPTs said that today people are praying to the first Moscow metropolitan for "preservation of the unity of our church," as well as "for reconciliation of internecine warfare on Ukrainian land."
"We believe that, carrying our people through trials and sorrow, the Lord will grant peace and prosperity to historic Rus," the patriarch concluded. (tr. by PDS, posted 8 September 2015)
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