DISINFO: Ukraine persecutes believers and ministers of the Orthodox Church and Russian speakers
SUMMARY
The conflict between the Ukrainian authorities and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, formally linked to the Moscow Patriarchate, reached its peak on August 20, 2024, when the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a law allowing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to be banned. In reality, since 2022, attacks on the churches of the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” by Ukrainian nationalists and representatives of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” have increased. At the same time, dozens of acts of vandalism, including arson, against places of worship of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been reported. The persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and attempts to erase the Russian language from the country go hand in hand because religion and language are two fundamental, existential identity factors.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives portraying Ukraine as an enemy of the Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian leadership as pathologically Russophobic and accusing Ukraine of mistreating the country's Russian-speaking population.
These unfounded claims that Ukraine is fighting the Orthodox Church and persecutes the Russia language were made in the context of Russia's unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.
There is no persecution of the Orthodox Church. On 24 August 2024, the Ukrainian government signed a law banning churches affiliated with Russia, following a series of investigations related to parishes that Kyiv says could be taking orders from Moscow.
This mostly affected the activities of the so-called Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate [UOC-MP] in Ukraine, which is affiliated with Russia and considered a key influence tool for Moscow in the country, and whose leadership has voiced its full support for the Russian war on Ukraine including siding closely with Putin, blessing soldiers and Russian guns, and offering the church's support.
Spravdi, the Centre for Strategic Communications under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, has explained why the government decided to ban the activities of UOC-MP. Spravdi found that in the churches of the UOC-MP, Russian propaganda was being spread; activities of enemy secret services were being covered up and Russian agents were being recruited.
The Ukrainian government does not plan to ban Orthodoxy. The parishes of the UOC-MP are free to switch to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which received the tomos of autocephaly in January 2019. It is also the most popular Orthodox church in Ukraine: 78% of Orthodox believers claim their allegiance to the church.
There is no evidence that either ethnic Russians or Russian speakers are facing persecution at the hands of the Ukrainian authorities, much less the danger of annihilation on grounds of nationality, ethnicity, or cultural belonging. This has been confirmed by reports issued by the Council of Europe, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the OSCE.
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