Ukrainian Catholic leader decries Russian ideology as genocidal, compares Russian Church to militant Islam
March 03, 2023
» Continue to this story on Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
CWN Editor's Note: Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk charged that Russia’s armed forces are moved by a “deeply genocidal” ideology that denies the “rights to the existence of an entire people with its language, tradition, and culture.”
“The culture that could have given rise to the phenomenon of Putinism is very morally sick,” the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church said in a recent interview.
Asked to comment on the Russian Orthodox Church’s support of the invasion, the Major Archbishop said that “when a religious institution begins to justify war, becomes a propaganda machine, and promotes Orthodox shaheedism [martyrdom through war], it is on the path of an Islamic state.”
“The Islamic world has already experienced something similar. But, thank God, Muslim sages found the strength to reject and condemn this ideology,” the Ukrainian Catholic leader continued. “This kind of use of the Christian religion for geopolitical purposes, justifying the atrocities and crimes of a totalitarian regime, is a challenge to the credibility of preaching the Gospel of Christ to people of the third millennium.”
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