(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 25.08.2024).- On Tuesday, August 20, the Ukrainian Parliament voted in favour of illegalizing the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” a widespread Christian confession among the population, but which is dependent on the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow. The measure was approved by the Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholics, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk. As ZENIT mentioned previously, numerically speaking, it is the largest Catholic Eastern Church in communion with the Pope.
However, the Ukrainian Parliament’s resolution has been contested publicly by Pope Francis during an address in Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday, August 25. The Holy Father said clearly:
“(. . . ) thinking of the rules of law adopted recently in Ukraine a fear assails me for the liberty of one who prays, because one who truly prays always prays for all. There is no harm in praying. If someone does harm to his people, he will be culpable of this, but he cannot have harmed for having prayed. Hence, let one pray who wants to pray in what he considers his Church. Please, let no Christian Church be abolished, directly or indirectly. Churches are not to be touched!”
The Pope’s statement came a day after Ukraine celebrated “Independence Day.”
Following is the press release issued by the Patriarchate of Moscow in response to the Ukrainian Parliament’s measure. In it they identify the Greek-Catholic Church (in communion with Rome) as partisan of the project, and it also mentions the request for religious leaders’ help in face of the measure. The Pope’s words are to be placed in this second ambit.
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On August 20, 2024, Ukraine’s Supreme Rada approved on the second reading the draft law “On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Religious Organizations,” which makes it possible to prohibit judicially the activity of any religious community in the territory of Ukraine, if it is “affiliated” to a religious organization in Russia. The conclusion of a ”religious proficiency” will suffice for a corresponding judicial decision, which in conditions of a “witch hunt” could be falsified.
The initiators and partisans of the draft law in Ukraine — top level State officials, deputies of the Supreme Rada, politicians and extreme right public figures, representatives of schismatic organizations and of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church — do not conceal the fact that the draft law is addressed directly against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; that the objective of this law is its liquidation and that of all its communities or their forced conversion to other religious organizations. Hundreds of monasteries, thousands of communities and millions of Orthodox believers in Ukraine will remain outside the legal framework, lose their property and their place of prayer.
During the years 2014-2023, the Russian Church’s Holy Synod repeatedly pointed out the pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which undoubtedly has characteristics of an anti-religious State policy. The approval of today’s law is a testimony of the regime’s impotence, which in the course of its political existence has sought systematically, step by step, to weaken, divide and destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church has repeatedly addressed organizations of the UN, OSCE systems and the Council of Europe, as well as the leaders of world religious communities, attesting to the persecution of believers in Ukraine. Despite the fact that many human rights experts and organizations in the West have acknowledged the violations of believers’ rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, this has not hindered the approval of the draft law, which destroys the very concept of freedom of conscience and basic human rights.
The constant background of the policy of persecution against the Church is a slanderous anticlerical campaign of the Ukrainian media that has gone on for years, directed to defame canonical Orthodoxy, causing and justifying massive assaults on churches called “voluntary transitions.” These assaults are organized by partisans of schism and radical nationalists with the support of the local Authorities, the Security Services and the Forces of Order. Assaults and attempted assaults have also been carried out against major monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with the forced eviction of its inhabitants.
Direct pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, its episcopate and clergy continues by the Ukrainian Security Services. In addition to the threats and blackmail, this pressure has been manifested in the opening of dozens of fabricated criminal cases and unjust sentences for political motives. Several hierarchs and pastors of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been arrested, imprisoned and unjustly condemned.
In various regions and locations of Ukraine, the local Authorities have directly “prohibited” the activity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, closing their churches by force, hindering religious services and illegally confiscating terrains under their monasteries, churches and shrines.
Unable to weaken the canonical Church in Ukraine, or undermine its unity, the local Authorities have taken a step to prohibit it directly.
Given its scale and centralized character, this measure could surmount all the previous historical repressions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, including the persecutions during the Greek-Catholic union of Brest, and is comparable to very sad historical precedents such as the persecutions in the Roman Empire under Nero and Diocletian, the so-called de-Christianization of France during the French Revolution of the 18th century, the atheistic repressions in the Soviet Union and the destruction of the Albanian Orthodox Church in the ‘60s under Enver Hoxha’s regime.
The approved draft law is incompatible with the notions of a State of Law, it is a political declaration geared to legalize the destruction of the majority religious community. The law establishes criteria that makes it possible to identify a group of people that are related by their belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and apply political reprisals to them.
With special bitterness, it is necessary to point out the negative role of Bartholomew, Patriarch of Constantinople and the hierarchs related to him. With their unilateral, hasty and contrary actions to the spirit of the sacred canons, have done no more than aggravate the ecclesiastical schism in Ukraine, without healing it. The leaders of the schismatics recognized by the Phanar have demanded with special ferocity the approval of the law that prohibits de facto the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. And Patriarch Bartholomew, who previously approved publicly the criminal persecution and arrests of its hierarchs and clerics, now, like the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, openly supports the actions of the Government, whose objective is to crucify and destroy the canonical Church in Ukraine. Thus, the Patriarch of Constantinople assumes a personal responsibility for the organization of the persecution of believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Expressing our firm conviction that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church of Christ (Matthew 16:18), as the harshest persecutions before did not prevail; and that Orthodox Christians of Ukraine will face with courage and firmness the new tests that await them and overcome them with the strength of the One who loved us (Romans 8:37), — we call for the fulness of all world Orthodoxy to intensify their prayers for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which suffers for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 1:9).
We make an urgent appeal to international human rights organizations to react immediately and objectively to the flagrant oppression of believers in Ukraine.
