Ukraine takes another step towards banning the Church—declares UOC is still part of Moscow Patriarchate

Kiev, February 1, 2023

    

The Ukrainian state has taken another serious step towards banning the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

In accordance with the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine’s order of December 1, the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience conducted an examination of the statutes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to determine its relationship to the Moscow Patriarchate.

The examination was carried out by “specialists in the field of religion, Church history, freedom of conscience, state-confessional relations, and theology … in religion in general and in the field of research into Eastern Orthodoxy in particular,” according to the state service.

President Zelensky put the National Security and Defense Council’s order into effect in December, instructing the government to submit a bill to Parliament that would ban religious organizations “affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation.”

The head of state also allotted two months for the examination of the UOC statutes, “and, if necessary, to take measures provided for by law.”

The “expert group” that examined the UOC statutes concluded that:

  • The adoption of new Church statutes in May did not constitute a break in the Church-canonical connection between the UOC and the Moscow Patriarchate. “The status of the UOC as a structural division of the Russian Orthodox Church, which enjoys certain rights of independence, but does not form an autocephalous church, remains unchanged.”

  • The UOC relates to the ROC as the part to the whole, not as a separate autocephalous Church. The UOC doesn’t even have the status of autonomy, the state service declares.

  • The UOC doesn’t act independently and hasn’t declared its own autocephaly, and therefore it “continues to be in a relationship of subordination to the Russian Orthodox Church.”

Thus, the Ukrainian state is one step closer to completely banning the canonical Orthodox Church.

The previous head of the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, Elena Bogdan, repeatedly stated that the UOC statutes, in fact, confirm the Church’s independence and warned of the societal instability that a Church ban would cause.

However, Bogdan was fired less than a week after Zelensky’s decree.

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2/1/2023

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Comments
Pfmd2/2/2023 5:33 pm
The Patriarch was repeatedly placed under house arrest – first in 1918, then in 1919, and finally in 1922. Tikhon died in a hospital on March 25, 1925. State security agents gave the Patriarch no rest until his final breath. His life was a constant search for compromise, as is evident from words quoted by his contemporaries, “May my name perish in history, if only it would benefit the Church”. However, neither the Patriarch's reconciliatory position nor his sacrificial death stopped the persecution of believers. The revolutionary slogan: “Long live the red terror!” shook the Orthodox Church. Beginning in the winter of 1918, while the Patriarch was still alive, revolutionaries shot religious processions in Voronezh, Lutsk, and Kharkov. From 1918 to 1923, 28 bishops, thousands of priests, and over ten thousand believers were killed. From February to May 1918, 687 people were killed in attempts to protect church property. This comment and the comment above are from an article found in RT today, The events are from 105 years ago, but are interchangeable with the events in Ukraine today.
Pfmd2/2/2023 5:23 pm
The persecution of the Christian Church began immediately after the revolution when the Bolsheviks came to power. A month hadn’t passed when Archpriest Ioann Kochurov became the first priest to be killed and the seizure of churches and monasteries also began. On February 1 (January 19, according to the calendar in use at the time), armed revolutionaries attempted to seize the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, killing the priest Petr Skipetrov and arresting Metropolitan Veniamin and the Superior General of the Lavra, Bishop Prokopiy. In response to these actions, Patriarch Tikhon issued a statement calling the revolutionaries “madmen”, “monsters” and “Satanists”. Tikhon's reaction was expected, but the worst was still to come. The oppression of religion was sealed on a state level. The first such act was the "Decree on the Separation of the Church and State”, signed into effect the very next day after the patriarch's statement. The act legally deprived the church of all privileges, and the country became secular. The act legally deprived the church of all privileges, and the country became secular. The new decree declared all church property as belonging to the people, and in fact, the property was seized in favor of the atheist state. However, all this was just the tip of the iceberg.
Alex2/2/2023 5:35 am
Zelensky is yet even closer to ending his reign. (If you can call it that.) He doesn't have a clue.
Massimo Manfredi2/2/2023 1:22 am
Sono felicissimo che la chiesa ortodossa Ucraina rimanga unita alla chiesa ortodossa Russa ! Le divisioni sono una tragedia per i popoli e contro il comanandamento del Vangelo ! Sarebbe ugualmente bello che tutte le chiese abbattano le barriere fisiche e mentali ! Grazie a tutti gli operatori di unione e di pace !
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