Patriarch Kirill to Be Met With Pickets in Kyiv
The Kyiv-based organizations of the Ukrainian People's Party (UNP), the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (CUN), the Ukrainian National Assembly - Ukrainian National Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO), and the All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda are getting ready to meet the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in Kyiv in their own way, reports Korrespondent.
The Kyiv branch of Svoboda announced on Thursday that it will hold pickets to protest the visit of Patriarch Kirill to Ukraine. One picket will be held outside the Kyiv Cave Monastery on Sunday, July 25, at 4 p.m.; another picket will be held in front of St. Sophia Cathedral on Monday, July 26, at 9 a.m.; and a third one in Volodymyr’s Hill on Tuesday, July 27, at 9 a.m.
"The current visit to Ukraine by the Russian citizen Vladimir Gundiaiev (‘Patriarch Kirill’), as well as the results of his two previous visits, strongly indicates that his activity regarding Ukraine is primarily political. He uses his visits to promote the political concept of ‘the Russian World,’ which is hostile to Ukrainian statehood and in which there is no room for an independent Ukraine," the press service of Svoboda said in a press statement.
The press service of the CUN's Kyiv branch said in a press statement that a press conference will be held near the walls of St. Sophia Cathedral on July 26 to discuss ways of overcoming the artificial split within the Ukrainian Orthodoxy and prospects for establishing a single national Orthodox church in the country.
A picket will be organized on Triokhsviatytelska Street on July 27 to protest Patriarch Kirill's "concept of the Russian World," the statement said. On July 28, representatives of the UNP, CUN, and UNA-UNSO will gather at St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral, which belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate on July 28 to join a prayer and a sacred procession to celebrate the 1022nd anniversary of the baptism of Kyivan Rus.
As was earlier reported, on July 20 Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia began a pastoral trip across Ukraine, which will continue until July 28.
