Ukraine: Parliament bans Moscow Orthodox Church

The Ukrainian parliament has voted to ban the Orthodox Church, which is linked to Russia. According to MPs, the controversial bill received a large majority in the second reading in the Rada in Kiev. Of the 322 votes cast, 265 were in favor.

The ban is justified by the Moscow Patriarchate’s support for the war of aggression against Ukraine. The branch of this church in Ukraine justified the crimes against its own people. Officially, the law serves to protect national security and religious freedom. President Volodymyr Zelenskyj must countersign laws.

In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova sharply criticized the ban. “The aim is to destroy the deeply canonical, true Orthodoxy,” she said. The Russian Orthodox Church also condemned the decision. It was an “illegal act” and a “gross violation of the basic principles of freedom of religion and human rights,” said Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vladimir Legoida on Tuesday in the online service Telegram. He warned that the implementation of this law could “lead to massive violence against millions of believers.” The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, also spoke out and spoke during a visit to the Solovki monastery in northern Russia of a “difficult time in which many have turned against us, not because we are bad, but only because we are different.”

Ukraine sees church as “Kremlin agent network”

The law will come into force 30 days after its publication, said MP Yaroslav Shelesnyak. After that, the individual parishes will have nine months to break away from Moscow. In the fragmented Ukrainian church landscape, around 10,000 parishes are still under the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.

“Today we have embarked on the inevitable path of cleansing from within the Kremlin’s network of agents, which has been hiding behind the mask of a religious organization for decades,” MP Roman Losynskyj wrote on Facebook.

Partners warn of religious division

While the law was being discussed, there were also warnings from Ukraine’s Western partners not to deepen the religious divide in Ukraine through the ban.

For centuries, Russia and large parts of Ukraine formed a unified church area that belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate. Since gaining state independence, however, Ukraine has also tried to achieve its ecclesiastical independence.

In 2018, World Patriarch Bartholomew recognized an Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Constantinople that is no longer subordinate to Moscow. The Moscow-loyal church in Ukraine declared its formal separation from Russia in May 2022 after the Russian invasion, but continues to recognize the Moscow Patriarch.

In this church there are priests and bishops who represent Moscow’s interests, but also many priests, congregations and ordinary church members who are clearly pro-Ukraine.