Kiev, March 15, 2022
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky thanked the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on Saturday for its role in providing a humanitarian corridor to the city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine.
“I’m grateful to the representatives of the Church who joined the attempts to protect the humanitarian corridor in Mariupol from shelling,” Pres. Zelensky said, reports the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with reference to the President’s official Telegram channel.
The President also called upon all Ukrainians “to work together without internal divisions, supporting each other throughout Ukraine.”
Unfortunately, in some areas, especially in western Ukraine, internal divisions have increased, and canonical Ukrainian monasteries and churches have come under increasing attack.
The President later told journalists that the state contacted Church representatives and asked them to go to Mariupol to help prevent shelling against the humanitarian convoys attempting to enter the city, to which His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine and other Ukrainian hierarchs personally responded.
On Saturday, His Eminence Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye and priests of his diocese were personally part of a humanitarian caravan carrying 100 tons of food and medicine to Mariupol.
Met. Onuphry earlier appealed “to everyone upon whom it depends to provide real humanitarian corridors for the urgent evacuation of civilians from settlements located in the line of fire and to guarantee their safety.”
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