Ukraine's new law: Banning faith or cutting ties with Moscow?

On August 20, 2024, the Ukrainian parliament voted in favor of Bill No. 8371, which regulates the activities of religious organizations with a governing center in Russia. This has paved the way for the banning of the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP). The Security Service of Ukraine has provided evidence of connections between the UOC-MP and Russia. More specifically, some clergy members justified Russian aggression and spread Russian propaganda materials.

Does this mean that Ukraine has banned Christianity or restricted the constitutional right of citizens to freedom of religion, as some social media users claim? Logically Facts takes a closer look.

Social media users started spreading claims that Ukraine has banned Christianity. (Source: X/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)

The specifics of the bill

The bill regulating the activities of religious organizations aims to make it impossible for churches controlled by a state that commits aggression against Ukraine – namely Russia – to operate. A specialized expert commission will examine religious organizations suspected of cooperating with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC),  which will be established by the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience.

If any of the signs of affiliation with the ROC specified in the law are found, the organization in question will be ordered to eliminate this connection within 30 days.

After the commission's decision, religious organizations will have nine months to sever ties with Russia. If this does not happen, agreements on using state or communal property, including churches, will be terminated within two months. Religious organizations affiliated with the ROC will be deprived of the right to use state and communal property.

"The law does not restrict freedom of religion but rather proposes cutting ties with Moscow; after that, the parishes can continue to serve," explained Ukrainian MP Iryna Herashchenko.

Every religious community has the right to appeal this decision. "The bill was supported by the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which includes representatives of various denominations who, on the contrary, defend freedom of religion in Ukraine," commented religious scholar and philosopher Iryna Bogachevska in an interview with Deutsche Welle Ukraine.

UOC and OCU: What's the difference?

Currently, two Orthodox jurisdictions operate in Ukraine: the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), led by Metropolitan Epiphanius, created at the Unification Council in December 2018 and granted autocephaly by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP). The law targets the latter.

The UOC-MP emerged from the Kharkiv Council in June 1992, when most Ukrainian bishops, then part of the Moscow Patriarchate, refused the course toward independence for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, advocated by then-UOC leader Metropolitan Filaret Denysenko (later head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate, Patriarch Filaret).

Thus, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has existed in Ukraine from 1992 to the present. Among its supporters and lobbyists were pro-Russian forces such as the Party of Regions, OPFL, and Putin's friend Medvedchuk. Oligarch Vadym Novinsky was ordained as a protodeacon in the UOC-MP. 

"The Verkhovna Rada's decision is crucial and symbolic as it lays a legal foundation ensuring that no religious organizations functioning as non-religious structures, particularly the ROC, which has been instrumentalized by the Russian political regime, can exist in Ukraine. This church has been used for decades as a soft power tool for Russification. Thus, the state has a legitimate right to guarantee its own security and the safety of its citizens, as people have always paid close attention to which religious organization they belong to and listened to its voice," Anatoliy Babynsky, a lecturer at the Ukrainian Catholic University and a researcher at the Institute of Church History at UCU published on the institution's website.

President Zelenskyy's statement

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in a video address that "A law on our spiritual independence has been passed. This is what we discussed with the members of the Council of Churches and Religious Organizations. In the coming days, I will also talk with representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. We will continue to strengthen Ukraine and our society."

"It's unfortunate that it took 2.5 years after the full-scale invasion to make this decision," Iryna Herashchenko, an MP from the "European Solidarity" (ES) party, which is in opposition to the pro-presidential faction, published on her Telegram channel. In May and July, the ES faction blocked the parliamentary podium, demanding the bill reach the voting stage.

MPs Block the Verkhovna Rada’s podium on July 23, 2024 (Photo: Yaroslav Zheleznyak)

Ukraine's desire to distance itself from the Moscow Patriarchate was not universally understood. In the autumn of 2023, Robert Amsterdam, an international lawyer, gave an interview to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, in which he claimed that "persecution of Christians," "church bans," and "imprisonment of priests" were allegedly occurring in Ukraine.

In the spring of 2024, when U.S. aid to Ukraine stalled, some representatives of the Republican Party also began talking about religious persecution in Ukraine. "When American leaders see this as a war for democracy and human rights, it would be good if the recipient of aid was a bit more careful about human rights, including religious freedoms," said Republican Senator J.D. Vance in March, who would later become Donald Trump's running mate in the upcoming elections. Vance said then that "Ukraine is doing some pretty bad stuff," referring to its religious policies.

In early August 2024, a large parliamentary delegation from Ukraine visited the U.S. and met with representatives of both parties. According to BBC-Ukraine, the MPs returned confident that the rumors of Washington's negative attitude towards the ban on the UOC-MP were greatly exaggerated.

After this, on August 10, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared "spiritual independence" in an evening address.

Eventually, shortly before the Rada vote, the Head of the President's Office, Andriy Yermak, commented on the church issue for the first time, stating that "the church in Ukraine will be free from Moscow's influence."

The history of the bill's adoption

A petition demanding the banning of the Moscow Patriarchate church in Ukraine appeared two years ago, gathering the requisite signatures for consideration within 24 hours. Back in 2023, 85 percent of Ukrainians believed the state should have intervened in the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, and 66 percent—roughly one-third of the population—supported a complete ban on the church. 

The director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Anton Hrushetskyi, noted the radicalization regarding the ban on the UOC-MP after Russia's invasion of Ukraine: "If six months ago, 54 percent supported it, now 66 percent of respondents do. This is a significant increase." He added, "The Russian church in Ukraine is effectively the Kremlin's fifth column. We are witnessing the annexation of the diocese by the Russian Orthodox Church, and there is no reaction to it. Naturally, the Ukrainian population, which is very anxious and stressed now, perceives this as a betrayal."

At the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian society criticized UOC-MP clergy for supporting Russian narratives about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and demanded decisive action from the authorities to ban the church's activities.

In the spring of 2022, the UOC-MP changed its charter to distance itself from the ROC. Despite this, a religious expert analysis conducted by the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience revealed that the UOC remains a structural unit of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In October 2023, MPs voted on the bill to ban the Russian church in the first reading. However, the bill was not raised for a second reading in the following months. On August 17, 2024, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations announced its support for the bill banning the activities of religious organizations in Ukraine linked to the Russian Orthodox Church, categorically condemning the activities of the church and linking it to the crimes of "Russian invaders." 

The head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), Epiphanius, eventually called on the head of the UOC-MP, Onufriy, to begin a dialogue about the unification of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

What will happen to the UOC-MP?

Religious scholar Andriy Smyrnov told BBC Ukraine that the law would facilitate and speed up the process of transferring some UOC-MP parishes to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, especially those communities using state-owned heritage churches. These communities will need to decide whether to switch or find new premises.

The expert noted that UOC-MP parishes with privately owned churches will still be able to operate even after court bans. "They are not threatened, even after the legal entity registration is canceled by a court. Communities can function without registration, and churches can be registered under individuals. UOC believers will still be able to gather and pray there," Smyrnov noted.

However, the UOC-MP itself viewed the adoption of the law as an "intensification of persecution." "The Ukrainian Orthodox Church will continue to live as a true church, recognized by the vast majority of practicing Ukrainian believers and local churches around the world. This is an objective reality. Any attempts to ban an objective reality will only discredit those who try to implement it, including internationally," said Metropolitan Klement, head of the UOC-MP's information and education department.

The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church stated it would assess the ban on the UOC in Ukraine, saying that the "law violates internationally recognized norms in the field of protecting religious freedom," reported Russian state media TASS.