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Russian Church to reach out to global rights groups to defend religious freedom in Ukraine

Earlier Kiev hosted the so-called ‘unification’ council held under the supervision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and brokered by the Ukrainian authorities
Head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Synodal Department for the Church’s Relations with Society and the Mass Media Vladimir Legoida Nikolai Galkin/TASS
Head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Synodal Department for the Church’s Relations with Society and the Mass Media Vladimir Legoida
© Nikolai Galkin/TASS

MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) is looking forward to assistance from international human rights groups given the situation involving the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Synodal Department for the Church’s Relations with Society and the Mass Media, Vladimir Legoida, said on Monday.

"Of course, we will continue to knock on the doors of international human rights groups and reach out to those who can influence the situation in Ukraine. What has happened is not conducive to civil peace nor does it resolve the religious situation. It is important to realize that what happened on December 15 and will happen on January 6 will cast Ukrainian society even further away from peace, and from resolving the religious issue," he said.

Pressure on UOC

Since the February 2014 coup, Kiev has sought to create an independent church in Ukraine that would sever ties with the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In April 2018, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko wrote a personal letter to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople asking for autocephaly for the Ukrainian church.

Meanwhile, persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) has begun, with its clerics being summoned for interrogations, searches being conducted at their apartments and criminal charges being filed against them.

Over the past few weeks, Ukraine’s Security Service, known as the SBU, has conducted searches in the Ovruch diocese in Ukraine’s Zhitomir Region. This resulted in 20 clerics of the UOC’s Rovno and Sarny dioceses being summoned for questioning. Searches were also conducted in the apartment of Metropolitan Paul, Abbot of Kiev Pechersk Lavra. According to the SBU, these police actions were part of a criminal case on inciting inter-confessional strife opened against him.

Poroshenko’s ‘unification’ council

On December 15, Kiev hosted the so-called ‘unification’ council held under the supervision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and brokered by the Ukrainian authorities. The canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church refused to take part in the event, stressing that both the ‘unification council’ and Poroshenko’s newly-founded church were illegitimate. Nevertheless, after the council, Poroshenko announced the establishment of a new church in Ukraine. The Constantinople Patriarchate promised to grant its Tomos of Autocephaly to the establishment on January 6.