Pope to Ukraine: Everyone should be able to pray in their church

Stephanie Stalhoven – Vatican City

“He who prays does no evil. If someone commits crimes against his people, he is guilty in this regard, but you cannot do evil because you prayed,” Pope Francis stressed, referring to the state ban on the Moscow Orthodox Church in Ukraine. “All those who want to pray pray according to the church they see as their own. Please, no Christian church should be banned directly or indirectly: churches are inviolable!” The head of the Catholic Church warned, to applause from the pilgrims, about “the laws recently passed in Ukraine.”

In his Sunday address, the pope also addressed the Ukrainian military advance into Russian territory for the first time. “I continue to follow with pain the fighting in Ukraine and the Russian Federation,” he said. In his appeals, the pope often explicitly calls for prayer for the martyred Ukrainian people — this Sunday there was no such wording: “And let us continue to pray for an end to the wars — in Palestine, in Israel, in Myanmar and in every other region,” Francis said. “Let us pray that the Lord will give us all peace.”

The head of Ukraine’s largest church linked to Rome, Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, defended the new law on Friday. The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church said Russia had used the Moscow-affiliated church in Ukraine as a tool of militarization. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the law on Saturday, which was passed by the parliament in Kiev on August 20. It effectively bans the Russian Orthodox Church from Ukrainian territory.

(Vatican News/CAP/KNA – SST)