European bishops, both Catholic and Russian Orthodox, are pleading for the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, to ask Vladimir Putin to stop the war against Ukraine.

The president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich addressed a letter to Kirill, a former KGB agent, on Tuesday asking him to issue an urgent appeal to Russian authorities to immediately stop the hostilities against the Ukrainian people.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan of the Archdiocese of Orthodox Churches of Russian Tradition in Western Europe, “our very unity is threatened” by the situation that arose following Russia’s “military intervention” and “violent attack” on Ukraine.

Archbishop John of Dubna made a direct appeal to Kirill “to raise your voice as Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church against this monstrous and senseless war and to intercede with the authorities of the Russian Federation so that this murderous conflict, . . . will cease as soon as possible”.

He then criticized Patriarch Kirill’s March 6 homily in the Patriarchal Cathedral of Christ the Savior. During his remarks, the patriarch implied that this “war of cruel and murderous aggression” is justified as a “metaphysical battle,” in the name of “the right to stand on the side of the light, on the side of God’s truth, of what the light of Christ reveals to us, his word, his Gospel.”

With all the respect “due to you, and from which I do not depart,” but also “with infinite pain,” the metropolitan writes, “I must bring to your attention that I cannot subscribe to such a reading of the Gospel.”

Nothing, he wrote, can ever justify that the “good shepherds” of the Church should cease to be “artisans of peace,” no matter the circumstances.