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Why Zelensky Is Cracking Down on the Church

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The ruling body of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Friday, asking that he reconsider his decision to evict it from its headquarters, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery. Many outside Ukraine, including some who have admired Zelensky and hoped he would manage to defeat the Russians, have been puzzled as well as Zelensky has moved decisively against the Church. In December, he signed a decree banning the UOC, to which millions of Ukrainians belong. In mid-March, thousands of those Ukrainians gathered outside the monastery to pray and show their support for the monks whom Zelensky has ordered to vacate the premises. This is all at odds with Zelensky’s image in the West: this is the new Churchill? A man who evicts monks from their monastery and closes churches?

The UOC’s leadership wrote to Zelensky: “Our Church, to which many millions of fellow-citizens belong, has always educated its flock to love their motherland, be worthy state citizens, and fulfil their civic duties with dignity. When the Russian Federation invaded, it was the first to condemn this military aggression strongly and call on its believers to defend their native land. We respectfully appeal to you, as the head of state and guarantor of compliance with Ukraine’s constitutional norms, to ensure the right to freedom of conscience and religion for our faithful, and to prevent the adoption of anti-constitutional laws against the Church.” Why is Zelensky acting against the freedom of conscience?

One key to understanding his actions is the often overlooked fact there is actually more than one Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This situation goes back to the period when Ukraine was a republic of the Soviet Union. When the nation won its independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Church did not, and remained under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow, which rebuffed repeated Ukrainian requests for autocephaly, or ecclesiastical independence. However, some Ukrainian Orthodox began to operate independently of Moscow. Finally, in January 2019, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople granted autocephaly to this Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Moscow refused to recognize this, severed relations with Constantinople, and continued its operations in Ukraine.

Back in the relatively calm and peaceful days of April 2018, four years before the war began and nine months before the Ecumenical Patriarch officially granted autocephaly, the Religion News Service estimated that 40 percent of Orthodox Christian Ukrainians belonged to the independent Church, and 25 percent to the Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Since Putin began his war, however, the Ukrainian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has seen a steady decline in its following, as millions of Ukrainians have shifted their allegiance to the independent Church. A July 2022 survey showed only four percent of Ukrainians stating that they belonged to the Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

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Comments

  1. The Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is very loyal to Moscow and Putin. It simply cant be trusted. At the start of the war several priests were arrested actively assisting the Russian invasion effort.

      • Thanks for the link Gravenimage, and this Russian Patriarch Kirill sounds more like an imam, as he’s actually encouraging martyrdom.

        • Agreed, John and ME Infidel. He *certainly* doesn’t sound like a Christian.

        • zelenski has made the mozlum dinner…gorging after sunset… mandatory for all in his gov.

        • It’s embarrassing how we are so often played for fools and suckered into supporting corrupt governments.

    • Yeah, but the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a spin-off of the Russian Orthodox Church: it was invented in 1991. Wouldn’t such a church, whose very existence would depend on Ukraine’s existence, be loyal to Ukraine? In which case, why would Zelensky crack down on it unless it is sympathetic to his political (as opposed to his national) opponents?

  2. The U.S. should not be giving this man and his government any money whatsoever.

      • Yeah, I don’t know which side is worse. I don’t care for Putin or Zelensky either one. Nothing good is going to come out of this war regardless of which side wins – especially with Joe Biden fumbling around on the sidelines.

        • The loud explosion we will hear will be a nuclear one caused by fumbling Joe Biden for constantly poking the bear and poking the dragon. His crazy neocon handlers want war and so they shall get the war they want. Not wise to poke bears and dragons.

  3. I wish Biden would spend as much money securing OUR borders as he does Ukraine’s.
    Even 1/10 would be a help.

    On another topic—I wanted to wish Mr. Spencer and everybody here a Happy Greek Independence Day. It’s also a holy day for us as it is the day of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to the Theotokos and she became the God Bearer.

    Have a beer, wine, or a little ouzo and celebrate!
    You’re all Greek today! ??❤️??

    • Wish you a happy Greek Independence day, Empress! ??

      May the spirit of Achilles be resurrected as Greece confronts the Turks ⚔️

  4. I understand that this crackdown is on the churches and monasteries loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate. In 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch recognized that the Orthodox Church in Ukraine (Patriarchate in Kyiv) was autocephalous, rather than under the Moscow Patriarchate.

    Maybe someone who is Eastern Orthodox can shed a bit more light on how ecclesiastical politics work in the EO world.

  5. And eventually Zelensky will skip town and fly to his 35 milion dollar mansion in Florida along with the millions in his offshore accounts. Not bad for dictator of a very poor country. We are being played. I trust Armstrong Economics for news about this war.

    • Martin Armstrong has a strange history including 11 years in prison. Check him out.

  6. Like alligators and pythons in the Everglades eating each other….winners for the birds and other inhabitants of the Glades.

  7. Patriarch Kirill is on record of being a Russian spy as well as a man of the cloth so President Zelensky knows what he is doing, and can’t do anything else but cut communication links to Moscow.

  8. So, I still dont know which Ukrainian Orthodox Church was shut down by Zelensky: the moscow patriarch or the Constantinople patriarch, assuming there is no Ukrainian patriarch.

    • No, there is one Patriarchate based in Kyiv, as Kepha pointed out above. It was created way after Ukraine’s independence

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