From His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All-Ukraine, Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church:
To the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia:
Your Eminences and Your Graces,
Dear Fathers, Brothers and Sisters:
It is with great sorrow that I learned of the repose of our dear and beloved brother, His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion.
From the fullness of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and on my own behalf I express heartfelt condolences to the hierarchs, clergy, monastics and all faithful flock of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia for the loss that has befallen you.
Vladyka Hilarion, whom I knew personally, was an outstanding hierarch. He fully and completely devoted himself to service to the Church. The blessedly-reposed Vladyka fulfilled his lofty archpastoral service, combining wisdom and firm leadership for the flock entrusted to him with personal humbleness and meekness. Over the course of his spiritual path, Metropolitan Hilarion obtained the gifts of the Holy Spirit, becoming for the faithful an example in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity (1 Timothy 4:12), to which the universal love for him bears witness.
During this Paschal season, we lift our prayers to our Risen Lord Jesus Christ for the newly-reposed bishop of God, that the Saviour receive His faithful servant in the heavenly abodes, where there is no pain, no sorrow, nor sighing, but eternal joy and life everlasting.
Eternal and blessed memory to our dear and beloved brother, Metropolitan Hilarion!
+Onuphry,
METROPOLITAN OF KIEV AND ALL UKRAINE
PRIMATE OF THE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
From His Eminence Metropolitan Ionafan of Tulchin and Bratslav, head of the Tulchin Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church:
To His Grace, the Right Reverend IRENEI,
Bishop of London and Western Europe
Dear Bishop Irenei! I sincerely offer my condolences to You and Your flock, in connection with the repose of the Angel of the Holy Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, her worthy and divinely-wise First Hierarch, His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion.
As a guest, I was personally fortunate enough to interact spiritually with Vladyka Hilarion more than once. And though news of the repose of the saintly hierarch has saddened me greatly at a human level, faith in the repose of his bright soul in the mansions of the Heavenly Father dissolves this sadness through our sure hope in his resurrection in Christ, unto the Life of the Age to come. For Christ arose on the third day from the tomb, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowed life. And thus it shall be!
With fervent prayers for the departed,
Yours in the Lord,
+ Metropolitan Ionafan of Tulchin and Bratslav, Ukraine
