On August 24, 2024, as Ukraine celebrated its 33rd Independence Day, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pronounced Ukraine’s “spiritual independence” from Russia by signing Law #8371, which bars any activities of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in Ukraine. Why? The ROC has effectively declared war on the people and nation of Ukraine by creating a quasi-religious concept to justify Russia’s invasion: the “Russian World” (Russiky Mir) doctrine. Russian World ideology declares that Ukraine has no right to exist as a sovereign nation and that Ukrainians are not a separate ethnic group, only a subcategory of Russians. Therefore, Russia is conducting a God-ordained “holy war” when it fights to re-establish Russian dominance over Ukraine, political, spiritual, and military.
ROC Patriarch Kirill has gone so far as to say that all Russians who die in the conflict will have complete remission of their sins and guaranteed entrance to heaven—an idea that eerily echoes claims of the leaders of ISIS about their “martyrs.” Priests of the ROC bless the soldiers, bombs, and aircraft that kill Ukrainians. The Russian World idea has been vigorously condemned as heretical by the Orthodox world. Even the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the Eastern Orthodox Church affiliate in Ukraine which is largely autonomous but not entirely separate from the Putin-dominated Russian Orthodox Church, is strongly opposed to the declaration that Russia’s war on Ukraine is holy. However, despite the UOC’s protests against Russia’s invasion, that it still has any formal ties to Moscow at all make it an object of suspicion among many Ukrainians.
The big takeaway: Law #8371 will have absolutely no impact on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church or UOC-affiliated organizations if they fully break ties to the ROC. If they refuse, their registered organizations will be liquidated, but religious activities of UOC believers and staff can continue. Unregistered religious activities are fully legal in Ukraine (unlike in Russia) so those faithful to the UOC can still meet for prayer, worship, teaching, and other religious activities. They do not have to go “underground” as some in the UOC claim. Again, this is not a ban on a faith – it’s an action against one or more registered legal entities. Law #8371 specifically provides that “No provision of this Law may be interpreted as a restriction on the freedom of religion or belief, the right to observe religious practices, or perform religious rites and ceremonies.”
Law #8371 directly forbids only activities of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and promulgation of its “Russian World” propaganda. The ROC and the Russian World Foundation, headed by ROC Patriarch Kirill, serve as a propaganda arm of the Russian government justifying its efforts to eradicate Ukraine and its people. In a hysterical reaction that shows the importance of ROC doctrine to Russia’s ambition to subjugate Ukraine, Dmitri Medvedev, its former President and current Deputy head of its Security Council, said the law’s passage is supported by the West “in order to inflict maximum damage on Russia.” He threatened to destroy Ukraine “like Sodom and Gomorrah,” saying the war now has a “sacred meaning.”
Law #8371 will have absolutely no impact on any other domestic or foreign religious organization in Ukraine. The law is not a “ban on Christianity” as some claim. It applies only to religious organizations that are subordinate to a foreign religious organization headquartered in Russia. The UOC and its affiliates are the only Ukrainian religious organizations in that position. Further, the law clarifies that Ukrainian religious organizations can be subservient in canonical and organizational makers to foreign religious organizations as long as their religious centers are not in Russia. All leading Ukrainian religious organizations, except the UOC, support Law #8371, including Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Islamic, as expressed by the multi-faith Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) in a statement on August 17, 2024. The UCCRO has also emphasized its appreciation for Ukraine’s strong record on religious freedom. Ukraine has at least 35,000 registered and unregistered religious organizations, including more than 8 Orthodox denominations, dozens of Protestant Christian denominations, 5 Jewish organizations, 5 Muslim organizations, and a wide assortment of other groups including Buddhist, pagan, and other religions.
Law #8371’s Safeguards Stand in Stark Contrast to ROC Religious Persecution in Occupied Ukraine. In occupied Ukraine, armed Russian forces enter churches, arrest pastors, interrogate parishioners, seize buildings, and close churches. They destroy religious buildings with their munitions and loot churches and museums to seize religious artifacts. There are no Catholic or free Orthodox churches in occupied Ukraine. There are only a handful of the thousands of Protestant churches that previously thrived there. Unregistered religious activity is banned. Russia’s official repression of religious freedom in Ukraine is actively endorsed by the ROC, which claims all of Ukraine must be Russian Orthodox. It has set up a special division to re-educate the people of occupied Ukraine to accept the Russian World idea.
To suggest that Ukraine is obligated to accept ROC operations on its territory that seek to undermine its sovereignty goes against the entire purpose of international religious freedom and human rights laws. These rules exist to protect the freedom of conscience of individuals, which Russia seeks to erase in Ukraine. It is well established that governments can restrict speech to protect their nations from armed invasion. The US ban on TikTok is a perfect example: ending its control by Chinese entities is permitted to protect US national security.
The ROC and the UOC are now on the losing side of a centuries long campaign to impose Russian control over Ukraine’s religious space. For 500 years, Russian domination of Orthodoxy in Ukraine has been enforced at gunpoint by the Czars and the Soviets. Ukraine’s citizens are well aware of this tragic history and of the pernicious actions and propaganda of the ROC in recent years, even if most Western observers are not.
The grant of autocephaly, self-government under the Eastern Orthodox ecclesial structure, to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in 2019 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, who occupies a first-among-equals position among Orthodox patriarchs, was a source of great pride and joy to most Ukrainians. Millions of Ukrainians have left the UOC, which is largely autonomous but not entirely separate from the Putin-dominated Russian Orthodox Church, to join the OCU, Ukraine’s indigenously controlled branch of Eastern Orthodoxy.
Fewer than 4% of Ukrainians now consider themselves part of the Russia-linked UOC, regardless of the fact that the UOC and the Ukrainian-led OCU have roughly equal numbers of affiliated congregations. A May 2024 survey showed that 63% of Ukrainians want the Russia-linked, if not entirely controlled, UOC to be completely banned with another 20% supporting greater government control over its activities. Over 100 UOC priests and leaders have been arrested for actively supporting Russia’s invasion, including acting as spotters for Russian aerial bombardment, harboring weapons, etc.
All of Russia’s extensive propaganda campaigns and expensive lobbyists fail to see the obvious: the ROC and the UOC have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of Ukrainians. If the UOC wants to remain as a Ukrainian religious organization it must cut all ties with Moscow, something it should have done long ago. It should stop being part of an evil worldwide propaganda campaign to discredit the Ukrainian government for forcing it to do so. Voters, elected officials, and media outlets in the West should reconsider any support for Russia’s Russian World project and support religious freedom for Ukrainians, which cannot coexist with any influential religious organizations linked to Moscow.
