About the missile strike on Sumy

Aftermath of the ballistic missile strike on downtown Sumy on Palm Sunday. Photo: Strana.ua

It is the morning of Palm Sunday – a great feast in the Orthodox Church. Services are being held in churches. And then, the army of a “Orthodox country” – a country that claims to be “fighting Satanism” for “Christian values” in a “holy war” – launches a missile strike on the center of the peaceful city of Sumy. A trolleybus burns. The bodies of dozens of civilians are strewn across the pavement.

Not long ago, Patriarch Kirill spoke these words with apparent sorrow: "As the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus', for whom Moscow and Kyiv are the capitals of our Orthodoxy, it is especially hard for me to wake up in the morning thinking about how my flock is suffering in Ukraine."

We very much hope that Patriarch Kirill will now condemn this war in which “his flock” is suffering. That he will declare that it cannot be called “holy,” offer condolences to the families of those killed, and demand an immediate end to the bloodshed.

There’s another possibility, of course. He could clarify that “his flock” exists only within the borders of the Russian Federation. To be fair, in Ukraine, everyone has long since understood exactly that.

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