Bartholomew Holds Service for Ukraine Victims

A large Ukrainian congregation gathered for a Trisagion service to commemorate the victims of the violent clashes in Ukraine, conducted by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in the Fanar earlier this week. A dispatch from the state news agency said that the service included readings in ecclesiastical Slavonic, while the Patriarch welcomed the Ukrainian General Consul in Constantinople and Orthodox Ukrainians that attended.

     "It is very natural for us to accept you, our Ukrainian brothers, because Constantinople is your Mother church, who gave you the light of the true faith 1025 years ago," he said, stressing that the "doors of the Church and the doors of our heart are always open [to you]".

Members of the Ukrainian community living in Constantinople had expressed a desire to pray with the Ecumenical Patriarch for peace in their troubled country, in a letter sent to the Patriarchate.

Those attending the service said that the current crisis was the most difficult moment for the country since the nuclear accident in Chernobyl that had marked the lives of Ukraine's younger generation and stressed the comfort they had drawn from the Ecumenical Patriarch's support.