Patriarch Bartholomew calls Putin’s war “unholy and diabolical”

Kirill had compared the invasion of Ukraine to a holy war and promised soldiers heaven if they were killed in the battle.

Bartholomew said in an interview with Die Tagespost in Istanbul that the war is diabolical. According to Die Tagespost, Bartholomew was particularly shocked by a sermon that Kirill gave in Moscow a week ago. In it, Kirill drew a parallel between the Russian soldiers who died in Ukraine and Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, declaring that through the life sacrifice of these soldiers, all their sins were forgiven. Patriarch Bartholomew said: “What he said last, namely that all those who die in this war will go directly to the kingdom of God as martyrs, that is something that does not correspond to orthodox teaching.”

Earlier, a Ukrainian Metropolitan under Moscow's leadership said similar things. As CNE reported earlier, Metropolitan Augustine of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church called the teachings of his patriarch a “heresy”.

Personally, Bartholomew is very sad about the current state of relations between the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow, which were severed by the Russian side. In the liturgy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Patriarch Kirill will continue to be included in prayer, “although the Metropolitan of Ukraine, Epiphany, has asked us to convene a Pan-Orthodox Council to condemn Patriarch Kirill.”