Kiev, December 8, 2015
Participants of the procession of the cross on Sunday, the feast-day of the Holy and Right-Believing Prince Alexander Nevsky, held a picket near the embassy of the Vatican in Kiev, reports Interfax-Religion.
The Orthodox protesters carried placards which read: “No to the Vatican’s proselytism in Orthodox Ukraine!” and “A visit on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church without receiving its permission is a violation of the Church rules!”
They also submitted an appeal to the Apostolic Nuncio in the Ukraine Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti explaining that the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during his visit to the Vatican City on November 20 this year had invited Pope Francis I to visit the Ukraine.
“The pontiff officially accepted this invitation. It means that the supposed visit of Francis I to the Ukraine will take place at the time on which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Ukraine and the Vatican will agree,” the document reads.
The authors of the appeal noted that a visit of the Pope of Rome to any country is usually organized as a pastoral and missionary trip and, according to the rules of the interchurch relationships, such a visit on the territory of another Church should necessarily be agreed upon with its Church hierarchy.
The embassy of Vatican became the last point of the cross procession in which several hundred of people participated. They marched across the Ukrainian capital’s central streets from the Kiev Caves Lavra and performed a prayerful standing on the site of the former tent Church of St. Alexander Nevsky. The latter had been demolished by the authorities back in 2011 and now a memorial cross had been erected on that spot.
