"You can't claim to be a brother of another people and bless the war that your state is waging against your brother, "Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said in an exclusive interview for the Cyprus newspaper Kathimerini to the question: "is the attitude of the patriarch of Moscow in the Russian - Ukrainian war worthy of the leader of the Orthodox Church?"
The interview was published by the Spiritual Front of Ukraine.
"We must understand that war, the murder of a person by a neighbor, a brother by a brother, is the most disgusting and unacceptable imprint of a destructive and decadent situation, which, unfortunately, humanity remains a hostage to. A reality that stands in stark contrast to the teachings of our Lord...
In the face of the death of innocent people, the bombing of civilians, the leveling of entire cities to the ground, in the face of this human tragedy, it is impossible to say any sermon that would characterize this war as "sacred". This is something very upsetting. This causes us great grief and pain. But this causes much more pain to the Ukrainians themselves. Because you cannot claim to be the brother of another people and bless the war that your state is waging. You can't insist that Ukraine belongs to you ecclesiastically, but let the faithful of the church entity in Moscow's jurisdiction be killed and their churches destroyed by the Russian bombing. Of course, only if they don't hope a military invasion will solve their church claims. Something that makes the whole situation extremely tragic. And this, of course, is seen by our Ukrainian brothers and sisters when they watch how the Dnieper River, where they received baptism from Constantinople, turned into a river red with the blood of their innocent compatriots, and Mariupol and other cities turned into ruins," Patriarch Bartholomew said.