In the latest sign of the strain that the Ukraine war is putting on the global Orthodox community, Amsterdam’s Russian Orthodox parish has formally asked for canonical permission to break away from Moscow and to join the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Following news reports about the war in Ukraine is important, Cardinal Michael Czerny said, but meeting the victims of that war — the people forced to flee — has a different impact.
The head of the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine challenged the international community to “take action so that Russia immediately stops the barbaric ruination of Ukrainian cities, villages and their population.”
Two cardinals arrived at separate destinations on one mission entrusted to them by Pope Francis: to bring relief, hope and encouragement to suffering Ukrainians.
When Caroline Brennan met Ukrainian refugee Mahamudoff Gazym at an overcrowded bus station in Otaci, Moldova, he spoke about the questions his grandchildren ask that he doesn’t have a concrete answer to: “Who is making all the sounds of the bombs? How long are we going to sleep in the car?”
Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the highest ranking Ukrainian Catholic prelate in the United States, declared during a March 5 online interview, “Morally, Ukraine has won this war.”
In a telephone call with Russia’s foreign minister, the Vatican secretary of state “conveyed Pope Francis’ deep concern about the ongoing war in Ukraine,” the Vatican said.
When news broke that Vladimir Putin had ordered the Russian troops to invade Ukraine, Deacon Daniel Galadza was in Rome, taking part in a conference at the Vatican’s Congregation for Eastern Churches.
A top United Nations official said March 6 that the world hasn’t seen a refugee crisis such as the one developing in Eastern Europe, caused by Russia’s attack on Ukraine, since the last World War.
Stephen Coutcher, a Rhode Island seminarian who spent the summer of 2018 teaching English in Ukraine, urged those who feel helpless about the current situation there to pray for peace.
