The Vatican shut down its official web site on Wednesday within the aftermath of an obvious cyberattck disabled the positioning and returned a 404 error message to on-line supplicants. The Holy See stated it suspects hackers are in charge.

“Technical investigations are ongoing due to abnormal attempts to access the site,” Matteo Bruni, Holy See press director, advised Reuters. The web site has been offline for 4 hours as of press time.

The presumed digital sabotage comes only a day after Russia launched a formal protest with the Vatican over Pope Francis’ current feedback condemning Russian violence in Ukraine. Back in Spring, the Pope made feedback that insinuated Ukraine provoked Russia’s invasion. And, for months, he didn’t outright denounce Russia’s actions in Ukraine—spurring critique from some. Yet, in a pointy flip, Pope Francis made some strongly worded feedback in opposition to Russian cruelty in Ukraine in an interview published Monday in a Jesuit publication, America Magazine.

Specifically, the Pope appeared in charge violence in opposition to Ukrainians on Russian ethnic minorities like Chechens and Buryati. “Certainly, the one who invades is the Russian state. This is very clear. Sometimes I try not to specify so as not to offend and rather condemn in general, although it is well known whom I am condemning. It is not necessary that I put a name and surname,” he added.

Gizmodo reached out to the press workplace with questions however didn’t instantly obtain a response.

The web site outage will not be the primary time that the middle of the Catholic Church has confirmed weak to a web based assault. Slightly over two years in the past, a cybersecurity firm Recorded Future claimed that Chinese hackers had infiltrated the Vatican’s inner pc networks, according to the New York Times.

And in 2019, the Vatican premiered a digital “Rosary” app supposed to assist customers observe their praters. The app was hacked by a safety researcher inside quarter-hour of its launch and, earlier than being fastened, had flaws that left person private info and login credentials uncovered.