Istanbul, June 4, 2025
Photo: currenttime.tv
Among Russia’s stipulations at peace talks in Istanbul this week is that Ukraine cease persecuting the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Russian and Ukrainian representatives met for about an hour on Monday, reaching an agreement to exchange prisoners of wars and to return the bodies of thousands of dead soldiers.
Russia’s proposals for “regulating the Ukrainian crisis” and for achieving a ceasefire, which it brought to the table on Monday, were published by RIA-Novosti and other Russian outlets.
While Russia’s proposals primarily focused on political issues such as territorial recognition, Ukrainian neutrality, military limitations, and sanctions relief, they also included provisions addressing religious freedom—specifically calling for the removal of restrictions on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, alongside broader protections for Russian-speaking populations and prohibitions on the glorification of Nazism.
At the same time, voices from within Ukrainian politics declare that the state will never give up its campaign against the UOC. This can be seen in the recent dismissal of the head of the state-operated Kiev Caves Museum and Preserve who was said to be too soft in the battle against the Church and its ongoing presence in the holy monastery.
In August, President Zelensky signed legislation that bans parishes, monasteries, and other organizations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and last month, the authorities began investigating specific legal entities, namely including the center of the UOC—the Kiev Metropolia.
And of course, the authorities are persecuting individual hierarchs and clergy, most notably His Eminence Metropolitan Arseny of Svyatogorsk, who has been held in detention on phony charges for more than a year. And the schismatics, often with the help of law enforcement, continue to violently seize physical church buildings across the country.
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