Kykkos, Cyprus, March 18, 2022
Photo: romfea.gr
Western countries have reacted strongly against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, though they were silent when Turkey launched its invasion of Cyprus in 1974, one Cypriot hierarch pointed out recently.
This discrepancy shows that their moral sensitivity is selective, based on their own self-interests, His Eminence Metropolitan Nikiforos of Kykkos of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus said on Sunday.
The feast of the Sunday of Orthodoxy celebrates the Church’s triumphs over heresies and persecutions, the Metropolitan noted, but that age of heroism, virtue, and sacrifice was followed by today’s age of decay, the coldness of sin, and the mire of self-interest, the hierarch lamented, reports Romfea.
The Church has many enemies from without, and unfortunately, they find many allies within the Church—people who speak in favor of Orthodoxy but betray it with their works, which even includes bishops, Met. Nikiforos specified.
“Today, unfortunately, we have to admit that the Orthodox Church, Orthodoxy on a universal level, is no longer presented with a cracked, but with a shattered unity,” he said.
Referring to the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” created by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Met. Nikiforos noted that the Orthodox Church is unable to effectively deal with modern problems successfully due to the disrupted unity brought on by this “schism in action.”
His Eminence then turned to current affairs, strongly condemning what is happening in Ukraine, “whose people are bleeding in the fire and lava of a ruthless war… experiencing the horrors of a massacre and tears of mourning in recent days because of the Russian military invasion of their country.”
However, Western and NATO forces are not innocent in the current crisis in Ukraine, he said. And while they spare no expense today in “deadly financial sanctions against the Russian people,” when Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974, they simply clasped their hands and watched in silence.
“Why is their moral sensitivity so selective?” he asked, noting that “unfortunately their crude geostrategic, geopolitical, and economic interests sometimes give them a voice and sometimes take it away.”
Concluding his remarks, His Eminence called on the people to put Orthodoxy first, “because the adherence of our nation to the Orthodox faith has always been our redeeming refuge of strength and hope.”
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