Has Ukraine Banned the Orthodox Church? What We Know

The Ukrainian parliament has banned a branch of the Orthodox church, linked to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Kyiv says the church, called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), has been spreading pro-Moscow propaganda and housing spies.

Some 265 lawmakers passed a bill banning the Russian Orthodox Church on Ukrainian territory on Tuesday.

A government commission is set to put together a list of organizations "affiliated" with the UOC, Reuters reports.

"This is a historic vote. Parliament approved legislation which bans a branch of the aggressor country in Ukraine," Lawmaker Iryna Herashchenko wrote on Telegram.

President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the legislation last week, when he said it would strengthen Ukraine's "spiritual independence."

The UOC has historically been part of the Russian Orthodox Church, but it started putting distance between itself and Moscow after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The church's spokesman Metropolitan Klyment has denied any links with "foreign centers. He told Hromadske TV: "The Ukrainian Orthodox Church will continue to live as a true church, recognized by the vast majority of practicing Ukrainian believers and churches of the world."

Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized the move, saying the bill was aimed at "destroying true Orthodoxy and putting in its place a substitute, a pseudo-church."

Several conservative figures in America, including Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, have spoken out against what they have called the persecution of Christians in Ukraine.

In July 2023, during an interview with former Vice President Mike Pence, Carlson asked him if, during his meeting in Kyiv with Zelensky the month before, Pence raised the issue of "persecuted Christians in Ukraine."

The former Fox News anchor said that the Ukrainian government had "raided convents" and has "effectively banned" the primacy in the country of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Pence replied: "What I can tell you is I asked the Christian leader in Kyiv, if that [arresting Christians] was in fact happening, and he assured me that it was not. People were not being persecuted for their religious beliefs."

Shortly afterward, U.S.-based Orthodox Public Affairs Committee (OPAC) spoke out against Carlson's comments, calling them "nonsensical."

In a statement to Newsweek, the OPAC said it had "deep concern" at how media personalities like Carlson "continue to spout Russian propaganda about so-called persecution of Christians in Ukraine."

"Carlson, who has little or no understanding of the complexities of the religious reality of Ukraine, only foments more division with his nonsensical statements," it added.

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has previously spoken about the destruction of religious buildings and the arrests and killings of faith leaders in the Russia-Ukraine war.

He told Newsweek: "Today, in the occupied territory, there is not one Catholic priest. All my priests, even the Roman Catholic priests, were all expelled or imprisoned.

Russia is returning "to the time of the Soviet Union where all of those religions were prohibited or overcontrolled, or simply destroyed," he added.

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