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Requiem for Famine Victims Held in Moscow

A requiem for the victims of the famine in Russia, Ukraine, and other republics of the former USSR in 1932-1933 was held Saturday at the Moscow Epiphany Cathedral, blessed by Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Aleksiy II.

Ambassador of Ukraine to the Russian Federation Oleh Diomin, staff members of CIS embassies, and representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian communities attended the service.

“Death of starvation is one of the most horrible deaths that one can imagine. It is a slow death, and a man dies surrounded by other martyrs. There is no one around to encourage and console you. There is nobody to help you, because everyone is suffering from hunger just as you do,” representative of the External Affairs Department of the Moscow Patriarchate Father Mikhail Prokopenko said before the service.

He recalled that in those years famine had come to whole regions of the vast country, with people passing away in the atmosphere of suffering, despair, and hopelessness.

“Millions of human lives are the price that comes for the attempts to build Heaven on Earth without God,” said Father Mikhail, urging everybody to remember that the sufferings of the famine victims shouldn’t bring discord into the world of the living and become an excuse for mutual accusations and hatred.

On the patriarchal blessing, requiems for the victims of famine took place that day at many churches in Russia and other countries, as well as the Moscow Patriarchate parishes abroad.

Recall that Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that “announcing the tragic events of these years ‘an act of genocide’ against the Ukrainian people is a one-sided distortion of history to please modern conformist political and ideological line.” “In addition, it offends the memory of the victims of other nationalities who died in the 1932-1933 famine in the then Soviet Union,” reads the comment by the Information and Press Department of Russia’s MFA.

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