The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has appealed to the Pope, the UN and others in the West to defend a Moscow-aligned Church in Ukraine from "persecution", his office said Friday.
The diplomatic offensive comes as Ukraine prepares to host a synod at the weekend seeking to establish a unified national Church, independent from Moscow.
Russia's spiritual leader wrote to Pope Francis and England's Archbishop of Canterbury as well as to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, France's Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Angela Merkel, the Church said.
In his letters, Patriarch Kirill said Ukrainian authorities and security services have pressured Moscow-loyal clerics in the country.
Ukrainian police have raided several Orthodox churches aligned to Russia this month, as political and religious tensions between the two countries grow.
"The interference of the secular Ukrainian state into Church affairs has turned into brutish pressure on clerics of the (Moscow-loyal) Ukrainian Orthodox Church," Patriarch Kirill said, according to the statement.
"This makes it possible to speak of the beginning of full-scale persecution," he added.
He accused Ukrainian authorities of "using the Church to achieve political aims in a pre-election campaign".
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has made an independent Church a campaign pledge as he looks ahead to an unpredictable presidential election next year.
The weekend meeting comes after a landmark decision in October by Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to recognise Ukraine's independence from the Russian Orthodox Church, which has overseen Ukrainian believers for more than 300 years.
The decision was a huge blow to Moscow's spiritual authority in the Orthodox world.
The Russian Church broke ties with the Constantinople Patriarchate in protest.
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