Ukraine’s unicameral Verkhovna Rada voted 265-29 yesterday to completely ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the largest Orthodox Church in Ukraine, with a history of more than 1,000 years. The law, which will take effect in 30 days, begins by banning the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), but then includes all affiliated religious organizations. Even though the UOC had declared in 2022 full autonomy from the ROC’s Moscow Patriarchate, authorities in Kiev have treated them as completely polluted by the ROC. Police searches, raids, and arrests of priests have been intense. So, the UOC has nine months to sever all ties with the ROC, but the devil is in the details. MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak posted today on Telegram: “Among the people, it [is called] the law banning the Moscow Church.”
Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk admitted last week that the law would end the UOC in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in the run-up to the Rada vote that Kiev would “reinforce Ukraine’s spiritual independence.” And the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO), which supposedly represents all denominations in the country, excluded the UOC from proceedings to declare its support of the bill, reasoning that Russia remains the main “threat” to religious freedom in Ukraine.