Patriarch Kirill has sent a letter to world leaders asking them to assist followers of Russian Orthodoxy in Ukraine.
The Russian Orthodox Church has called on international leaders to "protect" its followers in Ukraine in the face of what it called official pressure on Moscow-appointed clerics.
In a
statement issued on December 14, the Russian Orthodox Church said Patriarch Kirill has sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Thomas Greminger, the secretary-general of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis, and other spiritual leaders, urging them to help protect believers and their faith in Ukraine.
"The
interference by the leaders of the secular Ukrainian state in church affairs has recently assumed the shape of undue pressure being exerted on the bishops and priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which can be defined as the start of all-out persecution," Patriarch Kirill was quoted as saying in the statement.
The statement was issued a day before a meeting on December 15 of senior figures from Orthodox Christian communities in Ukraine in Kyiv in a bid to form a new, unified, independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church and elect a leader, known as a Primate.
Comment: The man is either a crazed ideologue or a sinister propagandist, regardless, the way things are shaping up in Europe, he's going to be hard pressed to find dupes for his campaign: