Kyiv parish ravaged by occupation makes painful split from Moscow

Parish priest Andriy Klyushev poses for a photo, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Saint Nicholas church, Irpin, Kyiv region, Ukraine June 4, 2022. REUTERS/Edgar Su

IRPIN, Ukraine (Reuters) - For years a vocal minority at Saint Nicholas' parish in the middle-class Kyiv commuter town of Irpin resisted calls to split from their spiritual fathers in Moscow.

A millennium of sacred ties between Russia and Ukraine, they argued, should be above politics.