MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. The Ukrainian government will increase pressure on members of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church following the adoption of a law that allows banning the organization, said Andrey Bystritsky, chairman of the board at the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

Ukraine’s legislature earlier adopted the final reading a bill allowing to ban the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The law is expected to come into force 30 days after its publication.

"Of course one should [expect persecution]. This bill means that risks and threats would arise for people who will carry out activities in this religious organization. They will naturally be under pressure, to say the least. It would threaten their day-to-day life, create a heavy atmosphere for them," the analyst told TASS.

According to Bystritsky, this passage of the legislation by the Ukrainian parliament was politically motivated.

"There is absolutely no doubted that this is a consequence of the rising bitterness in Ukrainian society and its rising radicalization in general," he said. "This is an attempt to put pressure on its own citizens, an attempt to suppress any dissent, freedom. In general, this is a quite natural step of a regime that is going through fairly hard times."

The bill on banning the UOC was prepared on the direct order of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy and adopted in the initial reading in October 2023. However, for almost a year the legislation was not put up for a second reading due to fears that it would not get enough votes from lawmakers and would cause discontent in the West. Nevertheless, on August 16, the bill underwent some final amendments and received a new title: On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Area of Activities of Religious Organizations. It used to be called On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine on Activities of Religious Organizations in Ukraine. The legislature’s Humanitarian and Information Policy Committee recommended that parliament adopt the bill in the second and third readings.

The policy to ban the UOC was started in Ukraine by its former President Pyotr Poroshenko. During his term, the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine was created in December 2018 from two schismatic organizations, with the support of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Since then, with the encouragement of the authorities, schismatics from that church have been forcibly seizing UOC churches and attacking priests. Local authorities strip the canonical church of the rights to lease land under the temples, while special services bring charges of state treason and other crimes against UOC priests and impose sanctions against them. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, the authorities had opened 70 criminal cases against UOC clerics, and 19 of them were convicted and stripped of their citizenship by November 2023.