Kiev, August 12, 2024
The UOC’s pro bono lawyer Robert Amsterdam. Photo: spzh.live
The Ukrainian Parliament (Rada) has been trying to adopt bill 8371 and thereby ban the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church for several years now.
But in the past two weeks, there have been a number of reports in Orthodox media about a possible scenario for after the bill is adopted.
On July 30, Ukrainian politician Igor Mosichuk wrote that the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s Exarchate in Ukraine will soon be registered, with the expectation that the clergy and parishes of the UOC will join it after their Church is banned—a plan that has the blessing of Washington, he writes.
According to Mosichuk, Zelensky believes the UOC’s people will all join Constantinople, finding it an acceptable alternative to joining the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (however, recall that the UOC has been out of communion with Constantinople since 2018, precisely because it erected a schismatic structure in Ukraine). And if the people don’t willingly join Constantinople, the Security Service (SBU) will force them.
However, the details of Mosichuk’s post were unclear, considering that Constantinople has had an exarchate in Ukraine since January 2019 (which is presumably legally registered already). The structure is headed by Bishop Michael (Anischenko), who serves in the St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Kiev that was given to Constantinople by the Poroshenko government as part of the deal to create an autocephalous church in Ukraine.
On August 3, MP Rostislav Pavlenko, among the ideologists of the “tomos” granted to the schismatic OCU, wrote that such a scenario is far-fetched and has no basis in any Constantinople sources. The Phanar-aligned Orthodox Times also writes that the Patriarchate, which is increasingly concerned by the many problems created in Ukraine during the tomos process, does not support the banning of the UOC by bill 8371. On the other hand, the Union of Orthodox Journalist’s sources say Constantinople is the main motivator behind the bill.
Then, on August 6, Robert Amsterdam, the lawyer who is defending the Ukrainian Orthodox Church against state persecution free of charge, wrote a detailed letter to President Zelensky in which he describes documents his office has received that reveal the government’s plans to ban the UOC and force its people into Constantinople’s exarchate.
The letter was also copied to officials in the US, the EU, and the UN. It states:
My firm has come into possession of internal documents, which detail plans to establish a new exarchate (diocese) in Ukraine to subsume the UOC under the administration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (EP). These documents suggest this is a first step towards an eventual forced unification of the UOC and Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). I have reason to believe that the plans, as laid out in these documents and described in detail in Annex One of this letter, have been developed by members of your administration. I am making them public to show how the attack on the UOC is being manufactured as part of a narrow and pernicious nationalist agenda against the wishes of large swathes of Ukrainians, who remain committed to the UOC…
The plans laid out in these documents provide context for and build on the ongoing harassment and intimidation of the UOC, its priests and parishioners. These actions are being carried out by and in complicity with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS), nationalist deputies of the Verkhovna Rada led 2 by Ukraine’s former president, Petro Poroshenko, and the OCU. The SBU is arresting priests and Orthodox journalists on false charges, detaining them without a fair trial. We have witness statements confirming that the SBU is at risk of committing war crimes by offering some detained priests as barter in exchange for prisoners of war held by the Russian Federation. Parishioners of the UOC are being harassed and attacked; their churches illegally appropriated and transferred to the OCU. The Verkhovna Rada stands prepared to pass legislation developed by your government that will ban the UOC (Draft Law 8371), in violation of the international legal rules guaranteeing freedom of religion and belief as set out in Annex Two of this letter.
Each of the elements to the attack on the UOC is designed to prepare the way for the destruction of the UOC as an independent Church. This amounts to a collective punishment of innocent citizens on religious grounds. As President of Ukraine, you bear personal criminal responsibility for the actions of your subordinates that are intentionally causing great suffering and serious injury to a civilian population.
Amsterdam’s letter also details the state’s persecution of the Church over the past few years, and includes a section on international standards for the freedom of religion and belief.
Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!
