Transfiguration Cathedral, the cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in the Ukrainian city of Odesa, was badly damaged by Russian strikes on the city’s historic center.
“I think the people who used to attend that cathedral to pray are crying today,” said Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
“And we need to commiserate with them, because today a Russian missile hit not just the sanctuary of their church. It hit them in the very heart.”
Referring to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (the head of the Russian Orthodox Church), Major Archbishop Shevchuk added:
Just think: to have a patriarch who first consecrated the church and then blessed the missile that destroyed the sanctuary! I mean, it is a catastrophe, and we can truly sympathize with those people from the bottom of our hearts. I don’t know whether the Russian criminal who pressed the button realized this missile would hit the Transfiguration Cathedral, not the port of Odesa.
What did the Lord God want to convey with this tragedy? I don’t know what He wants to say—to the top of the Russian Orthodox Church, to the Russian criminals, and the Ukrainian believers of the Moscow Patriarchate—because the actions of these criminals do not follow God’s logic, but the devil’s one.