“May the Lord protect from fratricidal battle the peoples comprising the one space of the Russian Orthodox Church,” Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said on February 27.

“It must not be allowed to give the dark and hostile external forces an occasion to laugh at us; we should do everything to preserve peace between our peoples while protecting our common historical Motherland against every outside action that can destroy this unity,” he continued.

Patriarch Kirill explained that “when I say ‘Russian,’ I use the ancient expression from ‘A Tale of Bygone Years’—‘Wherefrom has the Russian land come,’ the land which now includes Russia and Ukraine and Belarus and other tribes and peoples,” he continued. “That the Lord may protect the Russian land against external enemies, against internal disorders, that the unity of our Church may strengthen and that by God’s mercy all the temptations, diabolical attacks, provocations may retreat and that our devout people in Ukraine may enjoy peace and tranquility: these are our prayers today.”