A new Ukrainian law aimed at removing the influence of the pro-Moscow Russian Orthodox Church enjoys broad popular support in Ukraine but is being viewed with reservations by international advocates for religious freedom.
Passed on Tuesday by Ukraine’s parliament, the law banning religious organizations that maintain ties to Moscow follows years of controversy over ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The law empowers a government office, the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, to scrutinize religious organizations for possible connections with Russia. If connections are found, the SSU will first issue a prescription to eliminate the violations. If the ties remain, the office will go to court to stop the religious organization's activities.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to sign the law. He congratulated lawmakers for passing the legislation "regarding our spiritual independence," saying that they will "continue strengthening Ukraine and our society."
The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which represents more than 90% of Ukrainian religious communities, welcomed the law's adoption.
"We categorically condemn activities of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has become an accomplice to the Russian invaders' bloody crimes against humanity, which sanctifies weapons of mass destruction and openly declares the need to destroy Ukrainian statehood, culture, identity, and, more recently, Ukrainians themselves," it said in a statement.
The Russian Orthodox Church operates only in Russia-occupied parts of Ukraine and in some monasteries directly subordinated to it. So, the ban will mostly apply to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which, according to the Ukrainian authorities, still maintains its ties to the ROC. After the Russian invasion in 2022, the UOC claimed that it broke those ties.
According to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology conducted in May, 83% of Ukrainian citizens believe that the state should intervene in the activities of the UOC; 63% of respondents want it to be banned.
Religious freedom critics
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent agency responsible for reviewing possible violations of religious freedom abroad and making policy recommendations to the U.S. administration and Congress, has expressed concern about the law's impact on Ukraine’s regular faithful.
"The most recent version of the law does not fully address prior concerns about the law's potential to impose collective punishments on entire religious communities. It also introduced new problematic aspects that could compromise the protection of freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression," says a statement that USCIRF Chair Stephen Schneck sent to VOA.
The commission said it will monitor the law's implementation after it goes into effect and urged Ukrainian authorities "to ensure that the legislation complies with Ukraine's commitments under international law."
Mónika Palotai, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Religious Freedom Institute, called the legislation "divisive."
"It divides people. It divides the international community. There will be questions about what will happen to those people who belong to this church. What choices do they have?"
Viktor Yelensky, head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, told VOA that Ukraine will adhere to its laws and international obligations.
"Ukraine is not North Korea," Yelensky said. "The procedure established by this law is quite democratic. The organization in question can challenge our demands in court at various stages. Only the court can stop the activities of the structures of the UOC if it does not want to sever ties with the Russian Orthodox Church."
Most Ukrainian Orthodox Christians belong to parishes with no affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church.
After centuries in which the Russian Orthodox Church was the predominant Christian denomination in Ukraine, represented by the Ukrainian Exarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church established itself as a separate entity in 1990 while maintaining relations with the Russian church.
In May 2022, its leaders announced their complete independence from the Moscow-based church, which has been a strong supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin's strategy of conquering Ukraine.
According to a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, only 4% of Ukraine's population identifies with the UOC. UOC claims that the true number is higher.
There is another Orthodox Christian church in the country — the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was granted independence by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2019. Since then, many parishes and individuals have switched their affiliation from UOC to OCU, and the process continues.
The UOC spokesperson, Metropolitan Kliment, insisted that the new law will deny Ukrainian citizens and UOC believers the freedom of conscience and religious beliefs. He said that lawmakers ignored appeals from Ukrainian soldiers faithful to this church and targeted the UOC for ties with Moscow that do not exist.
"There are no Moscow churches in Ukraine. Our Church has been operating in Ukraine since time immemorial, and its priests and millions of believers are conscious citizens of Ukraine, not imported from abroad. We did not elect this Verkhovna Rada [parliament] so that it would take away our churches during the war, as the Russians do in the occupied territories," he wrote to VOA.
In March 2024, the Moscow Patriarchate officially declared the war in Ukraine "holy." The "World Russian People's Council" issued a decree which said that "the entire territory of modern Ukraine should fall under the exclusive influence of Russia."
The UOC, in its statement published the next day categorically rejected and condemned that declaration: "Instead of providing ideological support and justification for Russia's military aggression and intervention in Ukraine, we believe that the Orthodox Church in Russia should have raised her voice against this war of aggression."
However, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian authorities have opened criminal cases against more than 100 clergy members of the UOC for such crimes as treason, collaborationism, aiding and abetting the aggressor country and the sale of firearms.
Ukrainian MP Mykyta Poturaiev, the chairman of the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, which worked on this legislation, told VOA that the law doesn't ban the UOC. Its latest version, adopted this week, established an extended grace period of nine months for Ukrainian organizations that still have ties with Russia to sever them and decide on their future.
"They can establish a dialogue with Istanbul, with the Patriarch of Constantinople, or they can establish a dialogue with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine," he said.
He insisted that the law doesn't target religious customs or beliefs but only collaboration with the enemy. "It would be strange if we allowed the FSB or another Russian state body to operate in Ukraine now because they are enemies," he said.
Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, a Ukrainian theologian and professor at University College Stockholm, says the challenge posed by the Russian Orthodox Church is not unique to Ukraine but is more urgent there than elsewhere.
"All European countries with a sizeable presence of the Moscow Patriarchate face the same dilemma: how to neutralize its influence without violating human rights."
He said no single country, including Ukraine, has come up with an ideal solution.
"Nevertheless, the adopted law features mechanisms that help contain the damaging Russian influence without damaging the freedom of religion in the country," he told VOA.
