- Ukraine bans Moscow-linked religious groups
- Law passed amid national security concerns
- Zelenskyy supports law; Russia condemns
Ukraine has passed legislation prohibiting religious groups linked to Moscow, aimed at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which the government accuses of complicity in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
On Tuesday, the parliament passed the measure by a vote of 265 to 29.
Lawmaker Iryna Herashchenko stated that it was a matter of national security.
“This is a historic vote.” Parliament has enacted legislation prohibiting the aggressor country’s branch from operating in Ukraine,” she stated on Telegram.
The majority of Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians, although the faith has divided between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which is traditionally affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, and the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which has been accepted since 2019.
The UOC claims it severed relations with Moscow following the February 2022 invasion, but Kyiv has refuted this allegation and started numerous criminal investigations, including treason charges, against the church’s leaders. At least one has been transferred to Russia as part of a prisoner swap.
President Vladimir Zelenskyy welcomed the vote as a step towards strengthening Ukraine’s “spiritual independence” and is anticipated to sign the bill into law.
Russia slammed the measure as a “powerful blow against the whole of Orthodoxy,” while its church, whose patriarch has described the invasion of Ukraine as a “holy war,” deemed the bill “illegal.
Ukrainian politicians have accused the UOC of facilitating Russia’s 30-month-long war against Ukraine by disseminating pro-Russian propaganda and sheltering spies.
Metropolitan Klyment, a spokesman for the UOC, maintained that the church had no ties to “foreign centres” and attacked the measure for targeting church property.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church will continue to exist as a true church, recognized by the vast majority of practicing Ukrainian believers and churches around the world,” he declared to Hromadske TV.
According to opinion polls, over 82% of Ukrainians distrust the UOC.
The process of banning the church is expected to take months because each Orthodox parish works as its own organisation and has nine months to decide whether to depart.
After this time, charges could be filed in court to prevent it.
In Kyiv, believers prayed outside the famous Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, the UOC’s previous headquarters, which was stormed by authorities in 2022.
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There is no politics here. We came to pray for our children and loved ones.” I’ve never seen any KGB agents,” claimed 56-year-old Svetlana, who declined to disclose her surname in reference to suspicions of collaboration with security agencies.
The divide between Ukrainian and Russian-linked churches was sparked by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, as well as the conflict between Kyiv and Moscow-backed separatists in the east.
In 2019, the Istanbul-based head of the Eastern Orthodox Church gave autocephaly (religious independence) to a breakaway wing known as the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) from the Moscow Patriarchate.
Igor, 21, of the OCU-affiliated Lavra monastery, told the AFP news agency that he backed the ban.
He accused the Russian Orthodox Church of being a Kremlin agent that “has metastasised so much that we will be fighting it for decades.”.
