Patriarch Filaret, a top Ukrainian clergyman, said President Vladimir Putin has fallen under the spell of Satan and faces eternal damnation unless he repents on Saturday, according to Reuters.
"With great regret I must now say publicly that among the rulers of this world ... there has appeared a new Cain, not by his name but by his deeds," Patriarch Filaret said, invoking the Biblical character who killed his brother Abel, Reuters reported.
"Like the first fratricide of history Cain, these deeds show that the aforementioned ruler has fallen under the action of Satan," he said in the statement, published on the patriarchate website in Ukrainian, Russian and English, according to Reuters.
Filaret, who heads the Kiev Patriarchate, leads the branch of the Orthodox Church that broke away from Moscow in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union and the declaration of an independent Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Filaret's church is a rival of the Moscow Patriarchate which is closely linked to Putin, strongly supports Ukrainian nationhood and the Kiev government's struggle to defeat pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, according to Reuters.
Filaret, who recently took over the Kiev patriarchate, said Putin had deliberately stoked the conflict in Ukraine by sending mercenaries, troops and weapons across the border and had spread lies via Russia's mass media about what was really happening, Reuters reported.
Putin denies sending Russian troops into Ukraine or arming the separatists, despite what Kiev and its Western backers say is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, according to Reuters.
The statement, entitled "New Cain," was released on the first full day of a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels, Reuters reported. At least 2,600 people have died in fighting in eastern Ukraine since it erupted in April.
"This ruler is cynically lying, saying his country is not a party to the conflict in Ukraine, though he did everything in order to foment the conflict and maintain it," said Filaret, according to Reuters. "He calls himself a brother to the Ukrainian people, but in fact according to his deeds, he has really become the new Cain, shedding the brotherly blood and entangling the whole world with lies."
