Statement of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill on the resumption of armed hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh

DECR Communication Service, September 19, 2023.

On September 19, 2023, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia made a statement over the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

It was with a heavy heart that I took the news of the resumption of armed hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh and of the first victims of the confrontation which flared up again.

For decades the Russian Orthodox Church has been making every effort for the restoration of peace in this blessed land and has been working, together with spiritual leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, to facilitate the dialogue between religious communities and the peoples of the two neighboring countries.

We have been able to make many achievements in this work, including, first and foremost, stopping the hostilities from growing into a religious conflict.

In these days of new hard trials I pray the Lord that the military confrontation give way to negotiation and that peace be established in the land of Nagorno-Karabakh, so that its people, whatever their ethnicity or religious affiliation, could live safely and profess, freely, the faith of their ancestors.

+ KIRILL
PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUS'

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Statement of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill on the resumption of armed hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh

Patriarch

Department Chairman

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Patriarch

Department Chairman

Sermons