The Moscow Patriarchate sharply criticizes the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.
"Metropolitan Hilarion expressed his deep concerns with continuous aggressive and offensive attacks of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church against the Russian Church and its primate," press service of the Communication Service of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations reports resuming the results of the meeting between DECR chairman Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk and prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches Leonardo Cardinal Sandri held in Italian Chieti.
It also mentions, that after tough critics of the joint statement made by Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis of Rome in February during their historic meeting in Havana, "UGCC leaders have not given up their hostile statements and actions against the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church."
"Statements by the UGCC Supreme Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk addressed to Orthodox believers participating in All-Ukrainian procession with cross for peace, love and prayer for Ukraine were especially unacceptable for their tone. At the same time, Greek Catholic leaders continue developing close relations with schismatics, thus violating the basic principle of respecting canonical norms accepted in Orthodox-Catholic relations," the synodal department notes.