Zaporozhye, Zaporozhye Province, Ukraine, August 5, 2025
Photo: pravlife.info
The Zaporozhye Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has issued a stern appeal to Territorial Recruitment Centers regarding the forced mobilization of clergy, warning that compelling priests to military service constitutes an assault on the Church as a spiritual institution.
The appeal published August 4, signed by His Eminence Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye and Melitopol “and the faithful of the Zaporozhye Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—the people of Ukraine,” declares that “forcing clergy to mobilization is not simply a violation of their rights. This is an attempt to behead parishes. This is an attack on the Church itself as a spiritual organism—the Body of Christ.”
The appeal comes as Ukraine has increasingly turned to forcibly mobilizing clergy of the canonical UOC in recent months. The Union of Orthodox Journalists has reported on four separate instances of clergy detainment by Territorial Recruitment Centers just in the first week of August (see here, here, and here). One priest was taken while on his way to confess and commune a seriously ill parishioner, who was instead left without pastoral care due to the actions of the authorities.
In the statement, the Metropolitan emphasizes the unique spiritual bond between priests and their congregations, stating: “A pastor is not an official or hired worker. He’s connected to his flock through the Eucharist, Confession, Baptism, prayer. It’s impossible to replace him—just as you can’t grow a tree in one day after cutting down an old one.”
His Eminence leader warned recruitment officials that mobilizing priests would deprive entire communities of spiritual services. “By taking away a priest from a community, you deprive hundreds, and sometimes thousands of people of their connection with the Church, with God. This is depriving people of Confession, Communion, Baptism, funeral rites,” he writes.
Met. Luke stresses that Orthodox priests take vows to God rather than secular authorities, making military service canonically impossible. “A priest gives an oath not to the authorities, but to God. And this oath is forever,” he states. “According to the canons, a clergyman is forbidden to take up arms and make a worldly oath, i.e., to swear allegiance to anyone else, even the state.”
The appeal warns that violating these sacred vows would end a priest’s ability to serve: “Breaking this, he’d no longer be able to celebrate the sacred rites. His ministry, the only thing he could do, would be finished.”
The Metropolitan cautioned recruitment officials about the spiritual consequences of their actions, declaring: “Don’t forget that above worldly laws there is God’s law.” He warned that those carrying out mobilization orders against clergy “become a tool in the hands of those who, in the name of political goals, push you into the abyss of spiritual destruction from which there is no return.”
Met. Luke predicts that removing priests won’t lead communities to join the schismatics as some might expect, but instead will drive believers “into the shadows, into internal isolation, with resentment toward those who created spiritual problems for them.”
“War will pass. But we must all live with its consequences. And our children too,” Met. Luke concludes, urging officials not to “cross that line beyond which God’s wrath begins.”
The appeal comes amid reports of increased pressure on Ukrainian Orthodox Church clergy to join military service, reflecting broader tensions between the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Ukrainian authorities during the ongoing conflict with Russia.
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