“We extend our condolences and share the pain,” – OCU Primate on the Anniversary of the Crimean Tatar Deportation

The OCU expresses its condolences and shares the pain of the consequences of the forced deportation of Crimean Tatars from their homeland in 1944. The head of the OCU, Metropolitan Epiphanius wrote about this on his Facebook page.

"On the day of remembrance of the victims of the Crimean Tatar genocide, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, clergy and faithful join in honoring the memory of all the fallen 76 years ago fathers and mothers, sons and daughters of the Crimean Tatar people. Eternal memory to them!" said the First Hierarch.

The head of the OCU noted that 200 thousand indigenous people were expelled from the Crimea, thousands Ukrainians, Karaites and other nationalities were forcibly evicted through belonging to mixed marriages, and more than 30 thousand people died only in the first year of the deportation due to hunger, diseases and exhaustion.

"There is no way to justify crimes against humanity when the value of human life, the gift of God, is simply annuled. Unfortunately, our peoples have many such shared tragic and painful pages of history. These wounds and deep scars from them remain in the people's memory forever," he stressed.