orthodoxrights.org

October 29, 2015. During his presence to the Moscow’s 3rd Religion and Peace international forum, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk present the dramatic situation in Ukraine, as the website Interfax-religion reports.

The Moscow Patriarchate condemned the efforts to transfer the civil conflict in Ukraine to the inter-faith dimension. The metropolitan underlined that the seizures of churches cannot help but cause the civil confrontation in Ukraine to deepen even further. He mentioned that: “certain radical political forces in Ukraine are interested in shifting this civil conflict to the inter-faith dimension. The development of such a scenario could entail catastrophic consequences not only for Ukraine, but also for European Union countries and Russia neighbouring it”.

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk praised the role of the Canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church during this difficult period. It maintains neutrality in the civil and political conflict that has split Ukraine, but neutrality does not mean indifference. “Today the Ukrainian church is the one-and-only social force that has real peacekeeping potential across the entire territory of the country. Moreover, this potential is realized, for example, during the release of captives, including priests of other faiths, during the delivery of major shipments of humanitarian aid to the difficult-to-access districts of the conflict area located near the frontline. The peacekeeping stance of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church irritates a number of political forces, and unprecedented pressure is being put on the heads of its dioceses and its individual communities in order to force them to join one of the sides in the conflict”, the metropolitan said.