The Russian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Ukraine’s two biggest competing churches, have organized processions in Kyiv on July 27-28 to mark the 1033rd anniversary of the Baptism of Kyivan Rus.
On July 27, some 55,000 parishioners of Ukraine’s Russian Orthodox Church gathered at Kyiv’s Volodymyrska Hirka (St. Volodymyr’s Hill) Park and walked towards Kyiv Pechersk Lavra.
The hill is named after Volodymyr the Great, the ruler of Kyivan Rus who converted the medieval state into Christianity around 988.
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, as in 2020, refused to hold a crowded procession due to the coronavirus pandemic. Its parishioners also gathered at Volodymyrska Hirka on July 28 but the crowd was limited to a few hundred people. Metropolitan Epiphanius, the head of the church created in 2018, held a prayer service near the monument to Volodymyr the Great.
At both events, parishioners weren’t wearing face masks.
The Russian Orthodox Church has come under attack for perceived pro-Russian actions by its clergymen since the war with Russia began in 2014.
