In April 2025, Russian-speaking Telegram channels spread a sharp statement allegedly made by Epiphanius, Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine. We checked the authenticity of this quote.
It is reported that the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PCU), the Metropolitan of Kiev Epiphanius, commenting on the death of Pontiff, instead of the traditional in such a situation, good words about the deceased and condolences said: “Pope Francis refused to condemn Russian aggression. His death the day after Easter is, obviously, a sign from above. ”
The scandalous statement was distributed, for example, the Telegram channels “Ostashko! Important "(two publications scored 97 000 And 96,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Maisto (55,000), Lomovka (47,000) and Nina Vatt (28,000).
April 21, 2025 at the age of 88 He died Pope Francis. The chapters expressed condolences many states and international organizations. Did This is the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, who later I visited The funeral of the pontiff. “He prayed for peace in Ukraine and for Ukrainians,” wrote a politician on the social network X. Indeed, from the very beginning of a full -scale Russian invasion in February 2022, Francis tried to show his support to the civilian population of Ukraine. Like a pontiff told In an interview, on the very first day he called Zelensky, then repeatedly signaled the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin about his readiness to meet in order to achieve peace and compared what was happening in Ukraine with Genocide in Rwanda. Francis is open Turned To the Kremlin with a call to "stop the spiral of violence and death." The Pope also talked about his conversation on Zoom with Patriarch Kirill, who “read all the reasons justifying the Russian invasion from the paper for the first 20 minutes,” in connection with which the Primate of the Catholic Church in absentia called Putin’s altar.
Nevertheless, in Ukraine, some statements by Francis aroused criticism: they were considered biased and even biased. In 2022 he I called Do not perceive the war as a cowboy film where there are good guys, but there are bad ones. In 2023, the phrase of the pontiff on the heirs of the Great Russia, the Saints, the rulers of the Great Russia Peter I and Catherine I, which he, was provoked by indignation Said During a meeting on video communication with Catholic youth in St. Petersburg. In 2024, speaking about the position of the leadership of Ukraine in a difficult situation at the front, Francis declared: "The one who sees the situation, who thinks about people, who has the courage to raise the white flag to negotiate, is stronger."
All this could form a disrespectful attitude to the deceased dad from some Ukrainians. So, after the news of his death, the Ukrainian stand -up Anton Tymoshenko wrote In the social network X: "The Pope killed a severe respiratory infection, but let's first listen to the position of infection." The screenshot of this publication, along with malicious comments under it, is actively distributed pro -Russian bloggers along with a quote attributed to Metropolitan Epiphanius.
However, let's see what Epiphanius himself said. This is what was said in his post in Facebook, which appeared shortly after the news about the death of the Pope: “With heart sadness, he took today's news of the departure of the pope of the Roman Francis. As the head of the Roman Catholic Church, he devoted his life to serving God, the spread of the Christian faith, introduced a lot of humanitarian initiatives to help those in need. During our personal meetings, Pope Francis expressed sincere concern to the fate of Ukrainians suffering from Russian aggression. For us, his efforts and personal assistance in the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war, as well as the return of children deported by Russian authorities, are extremely important. The restless pontiff sought in accordance with his beliefs to help Ukrainians achieve peace and always called for prayer about it. Yesterday, in his Easter Epistle, Papa again mentioned Ukraine, torn to a war, expressing the hope of establishing, by the will of God, a fair and stable peace in our country. ”
As you can see, this statement is full of respect and sympathy for the rested pontiff. It does not correlate with the words that were attributed to Epiphanius in Telegram channels.
“Verified” did not find traces of a viral phrase on the official resources of the PCU and on the blog of the metropolitan, as well as signs of its distribution in the Ukrainian media. The statement was published almost exclusively by pro-Russian Telegram channels, the first of which was Nina Vatt April 21 at 13:20 Moscow time, about 20 minutes before the true statement of Epiphanius, which we quoted above. This channel is far away Not first once It is mentioned in the analysis of "tested" as the primary source of misinformation about Ukraine.
Thus, the viral quote from the Ukrainian Metropolitan Epiphanius is fake. It is distributed to discredit PCU and Ukrainians as a whole.
Photo on the cover: social networks
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