Pope Francis wrote a letter to Moscow Orthodox Patriarch Kirill calling on him to “end the darkness of war” in Ukraine, which began on February 24.
“May Christ be a reality for the Ukrainian people, who long for a new dawn that will put an end to the darkness of war,” the Pontiff said in the short letter published by the Vatican News page of the Vatican.
In the letter, which he also addressed to other patriarchs of the fourteen orthodox branches of Christianity, on the occasion of the Easter they celebrated this Sunday, as marked by the Julian calendar, the pontiff asked that the Holy Spirit transform their hearts and turn them into true makers of peace. “Especially for war-torn Ukraine, so that the great paschal step from death to new life in Christ will become a reality for the Ukrainian people, who long for a new dawn that will end the darkness of war,” he wrote.
In the letter - which was published on the website of the Russian Patriarchate, Mospat.ru - Francis stressed that at this moment they feel the full weight of the suffering of the human family, “crushed by violence, war and so many injustices”.
Despite this, he said that Christians continue to “look with a grateful heart that the Lord has taken upon himself all the evil and all the pain of our world.”
“The death of Christ was the beginning of a new life and of liberation from the bonds of sin and the occasion of our paschal joy, opening the way for everyone from the shadow of darkness to the light of the kingdom of God,” Francis wrote.
In this way, he urged us to pray for one another “to bear credible witness to the Gospel message of the Risen Christ and of the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation”, so that “everyone may enter the kingdom of justice, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”.
Francis refused to meet Kirill in Jerusalem, as he initially planned, he said in an interview published on Friday.
Pope Francis and Kirill, with whom the pontiff has a good relationship but who justifies Russia's invasion of Ukraine, met only once in 2016 in Cuba, in a room at Havana airport, where they signed a joint declaration.
The Russian Orthodox Church criticized Sunday that possible sanctions could be imposed on Patriarch Kirill for his stance on the conflict in Ukraine, condemned by Kiev and other Western nations.
(With information from Europa Press and EFE)
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