Russian Orthodox Church calls invasion of Ukraine "holy war"

The World Russian People's Council led by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has adopted an "order" that refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a "holy war" and states that "the entire territory of present-day Ukraine should be included in the area of Russia's exclusive influence". The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has historically been linked to the Moscow Patriarchate, has dissociated itself from such statements.
Radio Liberty journalists reported that the Patriarchate’s document is not formally related to the Russian Orthodox Church, but many Russian church hierarchs and public figures associated with the church are participating in the council.
The document was approved during a conciliar congress held on 27 March in Moscow and chaired by Patriarch Kirill.
In it, the war in Ukraine is described as "a new stage in the national liberation struggle of the Russian people against the criminal Kyiv regime and the collective West behind it, which is being waged in the lands of Southwestern Russia", and from a "spiritual and moral point of view", it is "a Holy War in which Russia and its people, defending the single spiritual space of Holy Russia, fulfil the mission of the Restrainer, who protects the world against the onslaught of globalism and the victory of the West, which has fallen into Satanism".
The document also explains the concept of the Russian, describing its boundaries as wider than the state borders of "both the current Russian Federation and the great historical Russia".
The document also refers to the "triunity of the Russian people" and claims that Belarusians and Ukrainians "should be recognised only as sub-ethnic groups of the Russians".
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church reacted to the Russian statement by distancing itself from the ideology of the Russian world.
"The Ukrainian Orthodox Church does not support and dissociates itself from the ideology of the Russian world. Moreover, our Church’s attitude to this idea has long been publicly expressed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufrii of Kyiv and All Ukraine: ‘We are not building any Russian world, we are building God's world’", Ukrainian Orthodox Church said.

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