#30 - JRL 2009-145 - JRL Home
Patriarch Kirill satisfied with his visit to Ukraine
Vladimir-Volynsky, August 4, Interfax Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia believes he has achieved the main goal of his pastoral visit to Ukraine.
“I told that I wanted to pray together with pious Ukrainian people and now when I’m summing up my visit (to Ukraine - IF), I can say that this prayer took place. I felt your hearts with my heart, I saw your faces, I felt deep power of faith kept by pious Ukrainian people,” the Patriarch said on Tuesday speaking to Orthodox believers from the porch of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir-Volynsky.
The Patriarch told the people who came to listen to him that he would like to help them keep the faith and urged them to secure unity. He reminded that borders of the three sovereign states divide once united spiritual space of the Kievan Rus.
“Orthodox Church respects this choice of people, but in each of the states she works for national welfare, reconciliation and helps overcome conflicts. At the same time, the Church preserves her unity as the mother of all nations and peoples living in Kievan Rus,” the Patriarch said.
According to him, the ancient Assumption Cathedral of Volyn, which was in hands of Uniates for two hundred years in the middle ages, is “a dump reproach to all who forcefully want to change culture and national identity of people” as it partially collapsed under Uniates when attempts to rebuild it “on alien cultural and religious models” were taken.
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