Department for External Church Relations
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The Russian Foreign Ministry has published a report on the unlawful actions of the Kiev regime against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
On 25 July, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation published a report "On the illegal actions of the Kiev regime against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), its clergy and parishioners," according to the official Website of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The topics of the report are: discriminatory laws and draft laws of Ukraine directed against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; actions of Ukrainian special services and law enforcement agencies directed against the UOC; actions of Ukrainian local authorities and self-governing bodies against the UOC; seizures of churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and illegal re-registration of congregations; pressure of state and regional authorities on the largest monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; rhetoric of hatred, unmotivated aggression and violence against clergy and the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
In particular, the report notes that for many years the authorities in Kiev have been actively pursuing in Ukraine a course of liquidating the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, persecuting and discriminating against its clergy and the faithful.
"The events taking place in Ukraine fit into the overall picture of the systemic crisis of world Orthodoxy caused by the policy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the United States of America and other Western countries encouraging schismatics. The Kiev authorities and the West are trying to separate the Russian and Ukrainian peoples and destroy the spiritual closeness of the Orthodox believers of the two countries," the document says.
"Also the previous Ukrainian authorities took various steps against the canonical Church. Individual facts of oppression of the clergy and believers of the UOC were recorded as early as 2014 and earlier. Full-scale systemic pressure on canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine began in 2018 and especially intensified in 2022-2023. It was initiated by the central leadership of Ukraine (president, government, NSDC) and is currently being implemented in legislation, in the actions of special services, at the levels of regional authorities and self-governing bodies," stresses the report.
The full text of the document is available on the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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