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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin, implying that the Russian leader has given little attention to Christianity for rejecting an Easter truce.
“Unfortunately, Russia has rejected the proposal to conclude a ceasefire at Easter,” Zelenskyy said in a video on Thursday. (While Western Christians celebrated Easter last Sunday, Eastern Christians celebrate it next Sunday, April 24.)
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“This shows very well how the leaders of this state actually deal with the Christian faith, one of the most joyful and important holidays,” said the Ukrainian President. “But we keep our hope. Hope for peace, hope for life to overcome death.” Easter celebrates the day Christians believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion on Good Friday.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy gives a speech. (Instagram/@zelenskiy_official)
“Tomorrow is Good Friday for Eastern Christians,” Zelenskyy noted. He called the holiday “the saddest day of the year, a day when all you can do in life weighs less than prayer. Except for one [thing]… defense of the homeland, defense of brothers in arms in battle.”
Earlier this week, Russia rejected a United Nations proposal for a ceasefire during Holy Week, the week before Easter.
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Civilians, including children, remain trapped in the eastern Donbass region, where Russian forces launched a new violent offensive, and in the devastated port city of Mariupol. Guterres said earlier Tuesday that more than 12 million people in Ukraine are in need of humanitarian assistance. He predicted that number would rise to 15.7 million, about 40% of all Ukrainians remaining in the country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in Yerevan, Armenia. (Shutterstock)
Even China, which has not condemned Russia and has abstained on resolutions against the aggressor country, said it supports a humanitarian ceasefire.
Russia’s rejection comes after the head of the World Council of Churches approached Moscow Patriarch Kirill, urging him to use his religious authority as the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church to call for a ceasefire as Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter this weekend .
FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulates Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill on the 13th anniversary of his enthronement in Moscow, Russia Tuesday, February 1, 2022. (Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
“Our humble request to Her Holiness in this special and impossible situation is to intervene and publicly ask for a truce for at least a few hours during the Resurrection service,” said Rev. Ioan Sauca, a Romanian Orthodox priest and acting secretary-general of the World Council of Kirchen, wrote in a letter published on Tuesday.
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Sauca also noted that World War I fighting “ceased momentarily so that the soldiers could share the resurrection salute.”
Most Russians and Ukrainians identify as Eastern Orthodox, as does Putin. Zelenskyy, on the other hand, is Jewish.
FILE – Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill conducts the Christmas liturgy at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, Russia on Thursday, January 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
The Kyiv-based Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) split from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) before the Russian invasion, but hundreds of Orthodox churches have reportedly reassigned their affiliations from Moscow since the beginning of the year The war is shifting to Kyiv. While the OCU was founded in 1995, it received official recognition at a synod in October 2018 in Constantinople. Metropolitan Epiphanius I was elected in December 2018.
Polls show that a large majority of Ukraine’s population identify as Eastern Orthodox Christians, while a significant minority of Ukrainian Catholics worship using a Byzantine liturgy similar to the Orthodox but loyal to the Pope.
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A 2018 survey found that about 67.3% of the Ukrainian population identify as one or another strand of Orthodox Christianity, with 28.7% part of the Kyiv-based OCU, 23.4% simply “Orthodox” and 12.8% are UOC MP. Another 7.7% of the population identify themselves as largely Christian, while Ukrainian Byzantine Rite Catholics make up 9.4%, Protestants 2.2%, Latin Rite Catholics 0.8%, Muslims 2.5% and the Judaism account for 0.4%. A further 11% declared themselves to be non-religious or non-denominational.