Elentir
(ZENIT News / Contando Estrelas, 08/19/2025) – Putin’s dictatorship is committing all kinds of human rights violations in the areas of Ukraine it has invaded since 2022.
These Russian human rights violations in Ukraine include attacks on religious freedom. The delegation of the Catholic NGO Aid to the Church in Need in the United States has published an interview with Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Prelate Maksym Ryabukha, Bishop of Stephaniacum and Archiepiscopal Exarch of Donetsk.
Aid to the Church in Need notes about this Bishop: «Half of his Exarchate — the Eastern Christian equivalent of a Diocese — is off-limits, occupied by Russian Forces. Even the Cathedral is closed. In the interview, Monsignor Ryabukha, 45, and one of the youngest Catholic Bishops in the world, explains the situation of the Ukrainian Greek- Catholic Church: «Before the war, we had more than 80 parishes, and now we only have 37 active parishes. The rest were closed, occupied or destroyed.»
In the interview, Bishop Ryabukha is asked: «Is there any Catholic activity in the occupied areas?» This is the response of the Ukrainian Catholic Bishop: «Unfortunately, no. The laws of the occupying force prohibit any affiliation with the Catholic Church, whether of the Greek- Catholic or Latin Rite, and it is very difficult to exercise any kind of ministry there. My Exarchate no longer has priests in these territories. All our churches have been demolished or closed, and access to them is not permitted.»
Regarding the situation of his parishioners, Maksym Ryabukha adds: «The worst thing isn’t the bombs. It’s the feeling of being forgotten, feeling alone, or of no value to anyone. I hear from the occupied territories about the bonds between believers. Even though their lives are in danger, they feel part of one Church: in support; in personal encounters; when they share their dreams and hopes; when they pray together, even though it’s very dangerous and they can’t do so publicly. All of this gives them the strength to carry on.»
The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches. It uses ecclesiastical Slavonic as its liturgical language and Ukrainian as its auxiliary language. It was founded in 988 by Prince Vladimir I of Kiev and is part of Orthodox Christianity. This Eastern Church signed its union with Rome in the so-called Union of Brest in 1596, and is currently one of the 24 sui iuris Churches that form part of the Catholic Church. It is based in the city of Kiev. Monsignor Ryabukha explains the current situation as follows: «We have two Bishops, as there is also a Bishop Emeritus residing in the territory. We have 53 priests and eight men religious, spread over four regions. Several parishes have family centers, and we have seven Caritas centers, homes for men religious and parish groups.»
It should be remembered that the Russian invaders are not only persecuting Catholics in occupied Ukraine. Russia has attacked nearly 6,000 Christian churches since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Furthermore, the invaders have murdered 67 Christian clergy, kidnapped and tortured priests, and banned Catholic organizations such as Caritas and the Knights of Columbus.
Russia’s actions in Ukraine increasingly resemble the Soviet Communist dictatorship’s practices against religious freedom. Moreover, Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship has as allies some of the regimes that most fiercely persecute Christians in the world, such as the Islamist dictatorship of Iran and the Communist dictatorships of China, Cuba, and North Korea, which is the country that heads the list of persecutions against Christians every year.
