Packing Kyiv's 1,000-year-old cathedral for Orthodox Christmas, hundreds of worshippers heard the service in that church in the Ukrainian language for the first time in decades, a demonstration of independence from the Russian Orthodox Church.
Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said Thursday that Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra had been taken over by the state after the lease of the Moscow-controlled church expired on Dec. 31. Tkachenko attended the service Saturday.
The Metropolitan Epiphanius, the primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, spoke not just about Christmas but delivered a political message about the war. Natalia Levshyna said her husband couldn’t come to the Christmas service as he is fighting on the front line, but she will send him photos of the service as it’s very important to him. Originally from Donbas, she said she stopped attending the church of the Moscow Patriarchate in 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and supported the conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine.
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