MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/. Russia is confident that current attempts by the Kiev regime to split the Orthodox community in Ukraine will be successfully quashed, Alexey Polishchuk, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second CIS Department, said in an interview with TASS.
The diplomat reiterated that on October 19, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s unicameral parliament, passed a bill in the first reading aimed at banning the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and ensuring its further absorption by the breakaway schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), "which is Washington and Constantinople’s political project." "The Orthodox faith has weathered many tragic events, including the Tatar-Mongol invasion, the Union of Brest (in 1595-1596, which shifted the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of traditionally Orthodox lands from the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the Holy See in Rome - TASS), numerous wars and other large-scale upheavals. We are confident that the current attempts to artificially break Orthodoxy apart will also be surmounted," he noted.
Polishchuk stressed that the bill allowing the banning of the UOC is "legally invalid and contravenes the Ukrainian constitution." "Such an initiative is part of the Kiev regime’s extensive information campaign to discredit the UOC and its clergy. Such destructive steps are splitting Ukrainian society, striking a nerve among tens of millions of Orthodox believers. It is obvious that such a policy track may have the most serious consequences," he said, noting that canonical Orthodoxy on the territory of modern-day Ukraine has a long history going back over one thousand years.
"We have been consistently urging the global community to condemn the iniquity underway in Ukraine and have been calling upon international organizations to demand that the Kiev regime abandon the policy of church repressions," the diplomat concluded.
Situation around Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)
In recent years, the Ukrainian authorities have been openly moving toward banning the UOC and this process has only intensified since February 2022. The schismatics from the OCU, with the Ukrainian government’s approval, have been taking over UOC churches by force and attacking UOC priests. The canonical church is being deprived of its right to lease land plots for siting its churches, while its priests are being accused of high treason and other crimes, sanctioned or stripped of citizenship. Although at least 5-6 mln Ukrainians still adhere to the UOC, according to data from the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, the officially sanctioned persecution of the canonical church continues unabated.
On the instructions of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the government drafted a bill aimed at banning the canonical church. On October 19, the Verkhovna Rada passed it in the first of three readings. The UOC pointed out that the bill contravenes the country’s constitution and violates the right of citizens to freedom of religion.