Politics overshadowed Easter observances in Kiev and Moscow, with the Orthodox religious leaders in each capital trading barbs over the crisis in Ukraine - while the US reportedly prepared to send ground forces to neighbouring Poland.
Patriarch Filaret thundered to the faithful in pro-West Kiev that Russia was an “enemy” whose “attack” on Ukraine was doomed to failure because it was evil and contrary to God’s will.
Worshippers who gathered for a service which stretched into Sunday morning at St Michael’s Cathedral in Kiev, close to the Maidan, the Ukrainian capital’s protest tent-city, said they had hopes of a peaceful resolution.
“It is true there is a certain divide between East and West, but it seems to me that the Passover unites the country,” said teenager Tysiatchna Sofia “Faith has always brought people together.”
However, in Moscow, the patriarch of the Russian Church, Kirill, delivered a prayer for Ukraine in which he called on God in turn to put “an end to the designs of those who want to destroy Holy Russia”.
Kirill said that while Ukraine was “politically” separate, “spiritually and historically” it was at one with Russia, and he prayed that it would benefit from authorities that are “legitimately elected”.