Patriarch Kirill hopes for Zelensky
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia hopes that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will end the "cave policy" of discriminating against Orthodox Ukrainians based on their affiliation with a particular Orthodox jurisdiction, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
He told reporters about this on Monday, summing up the results of his visit to Strasbourg, the website of the Moscow Patriarchate reports.
“The latest changes that have occurred in Ukraine in connection with the election of a new President certainly give us hope. I am familiar with the thoughts of many Orthodox Ukrainians; in connection with this choice, they associate positive changes in the sense that discrimination based on the affiliation of Orthodox Christians to a certain Orthodox jurisdiction will cease, everyone will have equal rights and, in fact, I share the same hopes of Ukrainians in connection with the election of Mr. Zelensky as the new President,” Kirill said.
The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church also expressed hope that “this cave politics, which is absolutely unacceptable not only in Europe, but I think in most countries of the world, when respectable citizens are discriminated against, and not even on the principle of faith, but on the principle of belonging to a specific religious organization, will forever leave life of Ukrainians."
“I think that these hopes were shared by my interlocutors with whom I spoke here in Strasbourg,” he said.
Kirill noted that the topic of respecting the rights of parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has to be raised constantly due to their systematic violation.
“I constantly raise the topic of Ukraine because, and especially here in Strasbourg, because this topic has a direct bearing on human rights and religious freedom. In Europe, the rights of a huge number of Orthodox believers were grossly violated. I will not list all these violations, they are well known, but the result of the violations was the real suffering of these people, only because they wanted to remain Orthodox and wanted to remain members of the Russian Orthodox Church, belonging to their Ukrainian Orthodox community,” he added.
English version :: Read in English: Patriarch Kirill hopes for Zelensky