EXPLAINER: How is Russia-Ukraine war linked to religion?
Ukraine’s tangled political history with Russia has its counterpart in the religious landscape, with Ukraine’s majority Orthodox Christian population divided between an independent-minded group based in Kyiv and another loyal to its patriarch in Moscow.
But while there have been appeals to religious nationalism in both Russia and Ukraine, religious loyalty doesn’t mirror political fealty amid Ukraine’s fight for survival.
Even though Russian President Vladimir Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine in part as a defense of the Moscow-oriented Orthodox church, leaders of both Ukrainian Orthodox factions are fiercely denouncing the Russian invasion, as is Ukraine’s significant Catholic minority.
“With prayer on our lips, with love for God, for Ukraine, for our neighbors, we fight against evil - and we will see victory,” vowed Metropolitan Epifany, head of the Kyiv-based Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
“Forget mutual quarrels and misunderstandings and ... unite with love for God and our Motherland,” said Metropolitan Onufry, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is under the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow but has broad autonomy.
Even that seemingly united front is complicated. A day after posting Onufry’s message on Thursday, his church’s website began publishing reports claiming its churches and people are being attacked, blaming one attack on the representatives of the rival church.
The division between Ukraine’s Orthodox bodies has reverberated worldwide in recent years as Orthodox churches have struggled with how and whether to take sides. Some U.S. Orthodox hope they can put such conflicts aside and unite to try to end the war, while also fearing the war could exacerbate the split.
Article by Peter Smith for the Associated Press.
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