Patriarch Kirill says Ukrainians and Russians are one nation, but there is "political division"

Kirill Gundyaev, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, has said that Ukrainians and Russians are one nation, and "the church is doing everything to prevent them [Ukrainians and Russians – ed.] from becoming enemies".

Source: Russian Orthodox Church press service, citing Gundyaev in an interview with Russia-1 [state-owned Russian television channel]

Quote: "Undoubtedly. This is one nation [Ukrainians and Russians – ed.] that came out of the Kyiv baptismal font, but it is already a very large nation. From the White to the Black Sea...

The Orthodox Church was and is the force that unites this nation.

A political division exists. The fact that Ukraine has declared that they are radically changing the vector of their political and, I would like to say, historical development and that this new vector does not coincide with the vector of Russia's development – that is the issue."

Details: Gundyaev noted that "everything is being done in Ukraine to make Russia look like an enemy in the eyes of Ukrainians," but he did not specify who is doing it.

He added that the Russian Orthodox Church should do everything so that "Ukrainians and Russians do not become enemies."

Background: Meanwhile, a divine service was started under the leadership of His Beatitude Epiphanius, Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine, the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra (the Monastery of the Caves in Kyiv), on the morning of 7 January.

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