Pope Francis at his Sunday Angelus, yesterday, sharply denounced the Ukrainian government’s enacted ban this week on Russian Orthodox Church worship, arguing that the faithful should not be barred from worshiping as they please. The new Ukrainian law, which passed the country’s Verkhovna Rada on Aug. 20 and signed by August 24 by the President Zelenskyy, bans the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukrainian territory, while accusing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of being tied to the Russian state, despite the fact that the UOC has declared it has severed all ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.
In the Pope’s Angelus, he stated that he has been “thinking about the laws recently adopted in Ukraine,” which he said causes him to “fear for the freedom of those who pray.... [T]hose who truly pray always pray for all,” the pope said. “A person does not commit evil because of praying. If someone commits evil against his people, he will be guilty for it, but he cannot have committed evil because he prayed. So let those who want to pray be allowed to pray in what they consider their Church. Please, let no Christian church be abolished directly or indirectly,” Francis said.
