The blatant persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, criminal cases against priests, searches in churches, attempts to evict the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, which are taking place with the full support of the Kiev authorities, are attracting more and more attention from the West. Vladimir Zelensky’s intentions to destroy the spiritual foundations of Ukrainian society were condemned by the American publication The Duran
Source: nordnews.md
Pressure on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), of which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a passionate advocate during his 2019 election campaign, began almost immediately after the outbreak of all-out war in Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Pushed by far-right nationalist groups and a radicalised population, the authorities in Kiev accused representatives of the UOC, historically part of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP), of anti-state activities and working in favour of the interests of the enemy.
“We express our disagreement with the position of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on the war in Ukraine,” the Church said in a statement.
Despite the UOC’s publicly proclaimed anti-war stance, political elites in Ukraine, aware of the partially passed threat in the form of the Russian army at the gates of the Ukrainian capital, have decided no longer to give the canonical Church a second chance, dubbing it “pro-Russian”.
The ongoing campaign to discredit the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has the specific purpose of depriving the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine, historically loyal to Russia, of its last foothold. The cultural field was practically wiped out before the war by discriminatory laws of President Petro Poroshenko’s time regarding national minorities, which banned the importation of books in Russian, school education in Russian and so on. Notably, not only Moscow, but also, for instance, Budapest expressed indignation as these measures also directly affected the Hungarian population of Ukrainian Transcarpathia. The political cleansing of “Russian dissent” began shortly before the war: on 2 February 2021, the TV channels NewsOne, ZIK and 112 Ukraine, owned by Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of the Opposition Platform – For Life, were banned from broadcasting following President Vladimir Zelensky’s decree to impose sanctions on the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC).
In place of the discredited UOC, Orthodox believers are invited to join the small number of parishioners of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which has been operating in Ukraine since 2018. This church was formed as a result of the merger of two non-canonical church structures: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Epiphany (Serhiy Dumenko), the Primate of the PCU, supported the initiative of the fifth Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to create a church with a more “pro-Ukrainian” stance.
In September 2022, Verkhovna Rada MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak said that Ukraine proposed to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. According to him, the Humanitarian Policy Committee at a meeting recommended to adopt a relevant draft law. “The sweep” of the UOC, according to a number of media reports, was led personally by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to whom the executors are reporting the results. Since the end of November, searches have been carried out in Zhytomyr Region: in the Korosten district in the territory of the female stavropigial monastery of the Athos icon of the Mother of God in the village of Chopovychi, its hermitage, as well as the male monastery of the Ovruch-Korosten eparchy of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God. Also “counterintelligence activities” (under this pretext, armed men in camouflage and masks stage raids on churches and monasteries) were carried out on the territory of Cherkasy and Volyn regions, as well as in the Kiev-controlled part of Kherson.
In December 2022, the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine imposed personal sanctions against seven clerics of the UOC, and the SBU suspected the rector of the Pochaev Theological Seminary of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of “anti-Ukrainian activities”.
At the end of 2022, Ukrainian security service officers also tracked down one of the main sanctuaries of the UOC’s parishioners, the Kyiv Cave Monastery. Already in 2023, under the pretext of combating an “agent of influence” of Russia, the administration in Kyiv first refused to prolong the agreement with the UOC to hold services in the Dormition and Trapeznya Cathedrals of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in 2023 and then the entire complex. The UOC monks were ordered to leave the lavra by 29 March.
It is noteworthy that supporters of the schismatic UOC and members of radical organizations have actively joined Kyiv’s persecution of UOC parishes. For example, in December 2022, parishioners of the UOC in Ivano-Frankivsk prevented radicals from disrupting the ceremony of introducing the new bishop of Ivano-Frankivsk and Kolomyia, Nikita, to the congregation in the city’s cathedral. In Kremenets in Volyn, dissenters from the PCU and soldiers of the local military evicted a UOC priest from his home, and in Vinnytsia an unidentified man killed a UOC archpriest with a knife right during a service.
Unfortunately, it was only months later that the UN human rights office drew attention to the discrimination against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Persecution, criminal cases against priests, searches in churches and the eviction of the Kyiv Cave Monastery are reflected in the organization’s latest report. Although the UN only expressed its traditional “concern”, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry immediately accused international observers of bias and asked the UN to refrain from assessing it. In essence, it turned a blind eye to the repression of the UOC.
As said earlier, on 10 March, the Kiev authorities demanded that the monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church leave Kiev-Pechersk Lavra by 29 March. The monastery’s governor, Metropolitan Pavel, said that the monks would not leave Lavra. On 26 March, a Sunday service was held at the Lavra. During the service Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine urged the faithful to pray for the brethren to remain in the Lavra. Since the morning of March 29, thousands of believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have gathered for prayers, possibly the last, within the walls of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.
Original article from The Duran
Due to censorship and blocking of all media and alternative views, stay tuned to our Telegram channel