The UGCC Vicar General in Vienna, Father Yuriy Kolasa, strongly condemned the recent rocket attacks by Russia on residential areas in Ukraine. Some residential quarters in Lviv were targeted by shelling on Thursday morning. Father Kolasa's own mother was among the affected; the explosive waves shattered the windows of her apartment.
Source: Кathpress
"Today in Lviv, it was minus 1 degree. My sister lives in Lviv and is trying to cover the windows with plastic. But there are thousands of elderly people and those in need of care who are left alone in these inhuman conditions because they have no children or their children have left Ukraine," he said, expressing his heartache at seeing his elderly, helpless mother and many others "forced to endure the cold in fear and despair in their own windowless apartments."
The clergyman further stated, "Everyone involved in these brutal attacks on residential areas, whether giving orders or directly executing them, as well as all those who justify such inhuman atrocities, must know that they are accountable before the Almighty. Lord, this is a clear sin."
Father Kolasa appealed to the Austrian public and the international community to condemn the "acts of state terrorism" perpetrated by Russia. He also requested prayers for those affected by rocket attacks and for "the cessation of this absolutely absurd war."
Regarding a recent interview of American journalist Tucker Carlson with Vladimir Putin, Father Yuriy expressed outrage: "To call Putin a Christian leader is the height of cynicism." Christian leaders are those who "provide shelter to those displaced by war, protect the lives of millions of innocent children, enable them to live normal lives and attend school, and provide basic social and medical assistance to women with children and, above all, the elderly."
Killing innocent children, shelling residential quarters with rockets, threatening thousands of helpless elderly people and subjecting them to inhuman conditions, forcing millions of women with children to leave their homes—whatever all this may be, it is not Christianity, according to the Vicar General of Ukrainian Eastern Rite Catholics.