A cathedral that has functioned as “a spiritual sanctuary” in Kyiv since the 11th century could collapse under a Russian bombardment, according to Ukrainian religious authorities who fear it will be targeted in a premeditated assault.
“We have received alarming information about the possibility of an aerial attack on one of the most famous symbols of Ukraine, a spiritual sanctuary — Saint Sophia Cathedral,” the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations warned Tuesday. “This is why we address the political leadership of Russia with a demand to cease missile strikes immediately!”
The ecumenical body acknowledged that it “cannot verify” the rumor, but its appeal recalls a similar attack during the Second World War. And Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team acknowledged “alarming reports of the Kremlin’s plans to strike the St. Sophia Cathedral” while denouncing the new waves of Russian strikes against civilian targets around the country.
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“Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion now includes destruction to religious and cultural sites in Ukraine. We condemn the damage to the Catholic diocese in Kharkiv, as well as the Babyn Yar in Kyiv,” Ambassador Rashad Hussain, the lead State Department official for international religious freedom issues, wrote Tuesday on social media. “We urge the Kremlin to cease its brutal violence against innocent victims as well as religious and cultural sites.”
(2/2) We have also heard alarming reports of the Kremlin’s plans to strike the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. We urge the Kremlin to cease its brutal violence against innocent victims as well as religious and cultural sites.
— Amb. at Large for International Religious Freedom (@IRF_Ambassador) March 1, 2022
The UCCRO includes clerics from various Christian, Jewish, and Muslim entities who together account for “more than 90 percent of all religious organizations in Ukraine,” according to the organization’s website. That list includes the two leading and rival Ukrainian Orthodox bodies in the country, which split in 2018 when the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the Istanbul-based bishop regarded as “first among equals” in the Orthodox communion, recognized the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as an official Ukrainian national church, at the expense of the Russian Orthodox Church’s traditional, indirect jurisdiction over parishes in the country.
“During the Second World War, Soviet saboteurs blew up another sanctuary — the Dormition Cathedral of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra,” the religious leaders said. “It is not impossible to think that the perverted mind of the aggressor is capable of another similar crime.”
Those fears spiked as Russian forces, having failed in their effort to conduct a quick-strike overthrow of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and seizure of other cities, shifted to a more aggressive bombardment of Ukrainian population centers. An early morning bombardment of a government office building in the eastern city of Kharkiv, an attack that was captured on video, gave way to news of other strikes on other civilian areas.
“Putin is unable to break Ukraine down,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted in response to the Kharkiv assault. “He commits more war crimes out of fury, murders innocent civilians.”
The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center was also struck during an apparent effort to take down the TV tower in Kyiv.
“It is also absolutely possible that Russian missiles will hit the Saint Sophia Cathedral due to technical defects in weapon systems,” the organization said. “Every day those missiles fly in the direction of Kyiv, and any one of them can, even if not deliberately, but because of defects or mistakes, hit world-famous sanctuaries.”
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It also rebuked “the Russian leadership” for its “criminal shellings of Ukrainian cities,” in a concluding demand. “Once again, we strongly condemn the Russian military aggression against Ukraine and demand its immediate cessation,” it said.
