UKRAINIAN church leaders have backed a new law banning religious communities with links to Moscow, which was enacted by parliamentarians on Tuesday after a long period of debate and revision.
“No organisation, whether religious or secular, with its centre in a country committing military aggression against our people and governed by the aggressor state can operate in Ukraine,” members of the Council of Churches and Religious Organisations said.
“Protecting religious freedom and spiritual independence — meaning not isolation, but openness to the high standards of our religious traditions, while rejecting the use of religion to cover crimes — will help consolidate our society for victory and a long-awaited just peace.”
The statement from the Council, which includes Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim leaders, was issued before the final passage of Law 8371 by 265 votes to 29, of the Rada’s 450 members, and after online talks last week between religious leaders and President Volodymyr Zelensky.
It said that religious freedoms were being respected in Ukraine, and were mainly threatened by “Russian aggression”. Church leaders, it said, backed President Zelensky’s legislation to “disable the activities” of Russian-linked faith groups. It “categorically condemned” activities by the Russian Orthodox Church, which had openly declared “the need to destroy Ukrainian statehood, culture, and identity”.
In a televised address, President Zelensky welcomed the support of religious leaders for his government’s “course for Ukraine’s spiritual independence”. He said that the new law would ensure “real spiritual unity” against “manipulation of the Ukrainian Church from Moscow”.
The 9000-word law, first tabled in January 2023, prohibits activities by the Russian Orthodox Church, as “an ideological extension of the regime of the aggressor state” and an “accomplice to war crimes and crimes against humanity” (News, 16 August).
It also bans groups linked to “foreign religious organisations” located “in a state recognised as having carried out or as carrying out armed aggression against Ukraine and/or temporarily occupying part of Ukraine’s territory”.
The law, which is still to be signed by the President, also simplifies procedures for Orthodox communities wishing to join Ukraine’s independent Church, the OCU, founded in 2019, and regulates access to state and communal property, as well as formally banning “the neo-colonial ideology” of a “Russian world”.
On Wednesday, the information and education director of Ukraine’s Moscow-linked Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Kliment (Vecherya), told the BBC that the measure infringed Ukraine’s constitution and recalled Soviet-era prohibitions and acts of violence.
A British-US law firm representing the UOC, Amsterdam & Partners LLP, branded the law a “grotesque violation of religious freedom”, and said that it amounted to “a collective punishment of innocent citizens on religious grounds”, which would violate “every known international law”.
This was vigorously rejected, however, by supporters of the law, who insist that it will not prohibit the UOC, whose parishes can continue to function without legal registration, even if they fail to provide evidence of severing ties with Moscow within nine months.
AlamyAn Orthodox prayer tattooed on the arm of a Ukrainian serviceman, seen last weekend during preparations for the incursion into Russia territory
“A commission, independent of the executive power, will conduct research into the existence of connections and affiliations,” the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada’s Humanitarian and Information Policy Committee, Nikita Poturaev, told the Ukrinform agency.
“The UOC says that it has already severed relations with the Moscow Patriarchate — but there are many reasons to doubt this, and with this law’s adoption, it should begin a process of real and final separation.”
Disputes have continued over the status of the UOC, under its 79-year-old Primate, Metropolitan Onufriy (Berezovsky). It claimed to have asserted full independence from Russia in May 2022, but is still listed as an integral part of the Russian Church, with its dioceses and institutions, on the Moscow Patriarchate’s website.
The Church supports Ukraine’s war efforts, but has refused contacts with the new OCU and has rarely condemned Russia by name. More than 100 UOC clergy, including a dozen metropolitans, have faced treason and incitement charges since February 2022.
Proponents of a ban have cited persistent support for the war by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who appealed this month for more Russian priests to serve in occupied parts of Ukraine. During a visit on Tuesday to Russia’s Solovetsky Monastery, he reiterated his view that foreign countries had “risen up” against his Church for resisting “the devilish false values being imposed on Western people”.
The OCU’s Primate, Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko), met last week with the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew of Constantinople, and, in an open letter, invited his UOC counterpart, Metropolitan Onufriy, to a “dialogue on unity without preconditions”. He regretted that “all numerous previous appeals” had been left unanswered.
Opposition to the new law is expected, however, from other Orthodox leaders, including the Patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem, Georgia, and Bulgaria. Patriarch Daniel of Bulgaria expressed “grave concern”, at a meeting on Tuesday with the US Ambassador to Sofia.
The controversy raged this week as Ukraine ordered the evacuation of Pokrovsk, an important logistics hub in the eastern Donbas region, as Russian forces advanced, and repelled fresh missile strikes against Kyiv and other cities.
On Monday, President Zelensky said that his troops had secured control of 480 square miles of Russia’s western Kursk region since their surprise 6 August incursion. This is more than the total territory gained in eastern Ukraine by Russian forces between January and July.