The UN Security Council held an Arria-formula meeting yesterday on the repression of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the government of Ukraine. An Arria-formula meeting allows a member of the Council to call a meeting on a subject that falls under the jurisdiction of the Security Council. This meeting was called by Russia.
In his introductory remarks, Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia noted how then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in 2018 had formed a new Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which would be more appropriate for the policy of “Ukrainization” of the country. The UOC had been in union with the Russian Orthodox Church and used traditional Slavonic Russian in its liturgy, a language that the Ukrainian government was interested in banning in spite of the fact that Russian is the mother language of a large minority of Ukrainians. In 2022, with the beginning of Russia’s special military operation, the UOC announced that it was neither subordinate to Moscow nor to the Moscow Patriarchate, But this had no effect on Ukrainian authorities. (https://russiaun.ru/en/news/arria_120523)
Nebenzia showed videos depicting the expulsions of priests from their church by the Ukrainian authorities. (https://disk.yandex.ru/d/oqJ_erapx0Wrhg) U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield issued a statement simply decrying Russia’s invasion and calling into question its concerns for religious rights in Ukraine. The statement did nothing to address the issue at hand. A similar statement was issued by the Swiss and perhaps other “Western” nations.
