DISINFO: Ukrainian sodomites set new Christmas date, ban mass and seize churches
SUMMARY
Ukrainian sodomites are introducing new restrictions for Orthodox believers who will not be able to attend holy mass because Ukrainian schismatics seize a church from the canonical Orthodox Church almost every day.
RESPONSE
A particular disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets claiming that Ukraine's authorities are oppressing Orthodox Christians. This claim was made in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It also echoes another well known pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative, that of threatened values.
The followers of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which is completely independent from Moscow’s clergy, will be celebrating Christmas on 25 December starting in 2023. The fact that the date of Christmas celebrations was switched in Ukraine from the Gregorian calendar to the Neo-Julian calendar does not mean that holy mass was banned in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which is virtually the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, is free to celebrate mass on 7 January until its parishes decide to join the OCU. There is no coercion and UOC churches are not seized by force. Each community can embrace the OCU if its parish decides to do so.
Ukraine’s security service has found evidence of UOC affiliates' involvement in disseminating pro-Kremlin propaganda and helping Russian troops guide strikes.
Back in 2021, OCU Metropolitan Epiphanius suggested that the changing of religious dates in Ukraine would be a long process spanning probably 10 years. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine facilitated this process. In his explanatory note to the bill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: ‘Under conditions of the full-scale war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the powerful revival of the Ukrainian nation continues, and the successful struggle for identity contributes to the Ukrainians’ inner awareness and desire to have their own traditions and holidays.’
The OCU traces its traces its history back to 988 when Prince Volodymyr I of Kyiv had pagan idols destroyed in his principality and ordered it to be Christianised. In 1686, Kyiv’s Orthodox Metropolis was illegally united with Moscow’s Patriarchate which curtailed the rights of Kyiv’s clergy significantly. Numerous attempts were made to revive the Orthodox Church of Ukraine until it received a tomos of autocephaly (decree of ecclesial independence) from Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople on 5 January 2019, thus severing all ties with Moscow and becoming completely independent from Russian Orthodoxy.
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