The Ukrainian government declared that the Orthodox Church branch had failed to cut long-standing ties with Moscow, and could soon be banned.
The looming ban has affected and emphasized one of the two orthodox rival branches in the country The role of turbulence Ukraine dodges religion Russian invasion. Orthodox is the majority religion in both Russia and Ukraine, and serves as a cultural and spiritual battlefield in parallel with the wider war.
The action will take place in a year Ukrainian Parliament In order to strong support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it passed a law banning the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church.
The law also allowed the ban on organizations linked to the Russian Church. An investigation by the Ukrainian Orthodox government, which has connections with Moscow centuries ago, was soon followed.
The UOC has condemned a full-scale Russian invasion since the beginning of 2022. In the same year, he declared his independence from the Moscow Church, and in 2025 he repeated this attitude.
Still, the government says it refused to take necessary measures, including amending its governing documents, to complete its separation.
The August 27 government lawsuit requires more legal processes to be fully effective for a long time during the work.
The government petitioned the court to ban the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church itself. The church would have the right to appeal to the superior court if it loses – the process that can be completed in a few months, the lawyer said.
The discovery that the UOC is linked to Moscow was announced by Ukrainian State Service on Ethnic Politics and Freedom of Conscience, a governmental organisation known by the Ukrainian acronym Dess.
Under the law, some UOC congregations can find that they are prohibited from using property they do not own. This is an important issue in countries where the state owns and leases many historic church sites.
Relationship with Moscow in conflict
This order is specifically aimed at UOC’s “Kyiv Metropolis.” This is essentially a governing center. It is led by Metropolitan Onufrey, a bishop whose citizenship in Ukrainian has already been revoked. Under the law, UOC-related entities such as monasteries and local eParchies (comparable to parishes) could face similar sanctions.
The UOC declared in 2022 that it was independent from Moscow and began taking ritually strong measures to highlight its division, including refusing to commemorate Moscow’s head Kirill in a liturgy. Kirill is Devoted supporters of Russian invasion. He presided over the 2024 council, which called it a crusade.
Earlier this year, Des called on the UOC to take further steps to show complete separation from Moscow. It included documents that the Russians opposed the Russian church, which controls the UOC church on the occupied territory.
Onufry rejected UOC’s previous declaration of independence, saying it was appropriate.
The government opposed.
“This is not a religious group, it’s a branch of an attacker state,” he claimed the headline on Dess’ website.
In a statement, UOC’s lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, said the government’s findings “deliberately ignored” the UOC’s separation from Moscow.
He denounced the government for politically motivated efforts to “demote independent systems from the country.”
Separately, the government has accused them of assuming criminal cases against numerous individual UOC clergymen and cooperating with Russia or similar accusations.
Dividing and War
According to a 2024 survey by the Kyiv Institute of International Sociology, approximately 70% of Ukrainians are orthodox.
The study described it as part of Moscow’s patriarchy, which described it as a disputing label, but only those numbers were identified in the UOC. The UOC operates many parishes and monasteries in Ukraine.
He said most of the Orthodoxes surveyed were identified with the jurisdiction of rivals, a similarly named Ukrainian orthodox church. It was recognized as an independent church in 2019 by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.
Bartholomew is first considered equal among orthodox patriarchs, but he lacks the authority of the Catholic Church’s pope. Moscow is fiercely disputing the right to recognize the church as its consideration of its territory. Russian leaders even cite this division US Support For the new church, help to cause the present war.
Death head Victor Yelensky said at a press conference Tuesday that individual parishes could make their own decisions about affiliation. He said the action was not about religious doctrine, but about affiliation with the invader state. “No one asked them to reject their religious beliefs,” he said.
The longstanding conflict over the UOC has played a role in the debate over US aid to Ukraine, particularly as President Donald Trump’s new administration is more skeptical of such aid. Opponents supporting Ukraine have accused it of oppressing religious freedom.
The US International Religious Liberty Committee in 2024 raised concerns about a law banning religious groups affiliated with Moscow, but emphasized that “Russia continues to be the deepest threat to Ukrainian religious freedom” and is experiencing oppression in occupied areas of Ukraine.
A 2024 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also criticized the law, saying “the entire religious community responsible for the implementation of certain individuals may be held responsible.” It also targeted groups such as Catholics, Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses and cited Russia’s restrictions on religious freedom in the occupying territories.
Controversies, including war, have influenced Orthodox communities in the United States, like the Archbishop of Alaska. Controversial meeting In August, he was with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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