The speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleg Nikolenko criticized the Holy See for the decision to include texts written on behalf of young men from Russia and Ukraine in the program of the procession at the Colosseum on Good Friday. It is reported by RBC.
The message from the Ukrainian said that he fled from Mariupol, which came under Russian control, to his grandmother in Italy. A Russian brother died during the fighting, and his father and grandfather went missing.
The speaker of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry called such a ceremony an attempt to “equate the victim and the aggressor”, which “undermines the principles of justice and universal morality, discredits the concept of peace and brotherhood.” “Attempts to designate the equality of suffering Ukraine and suffering Russia do not contribute to reconciliation,” Nikolenko believes.
“We are disappointed that the Holy See did not take into account the arguments of the Ukrainian side about the offensive nature of such a gesture,” he wrote on the social network.
Earlier, the scenario of the event, which combined the stories of a Russian and a Ukrainian, was criticized by the Ambassador of Ukraine to the Holy See, Andriy Yurash. Initially, it was also planned that at the tenth stage of the procession, young men from Ukraine and Russia would carry the cross together, symbolizing the path of Jesus Christ to Golgotha. Against the backdrop of criticism from Yurash, the decision was changed – as a result, only a young man in a headscarf in the colors of the Ukrainian flag carried the cross.
The participants in the procession around the Colosseum were representatives of peoples and territories that are engulfed in military conflicts, violence, famine and the migration crisis. The event was attended by about 20 thousand believers.
In April last year, according to the decision of the Vatican, natives of Ukraine and Russia, who have been living in Italy for more than 20 years, carried the cross in the procession. The Ukrainian authorities criticized this step of the Holy See, urging him to abandon the idea of ”reconciliation” between the Russian and Ukrainian sides.
Source: Rosbalt
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