Photo: Religious Information Service of Ukraine On August 22, Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine, the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, received a delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate led by Metropolitan Ilarion of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada. “The Ecumenical Patriarch’s effort and desire is for all Orthodox Christians in Ukraine to unite within a single Church,” according to orthodoxtimes.com
Marco Levytsky, Editorial Writer.
On August 25, Pope Francis once again demonstrated his blatant pro-Russian bias and total ignorance of the history, culture and, in fact, anything related to Ukraine and Russia. This time, he castigated the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for passing Law 8371 on the prohibition of the activities of religious organizations associated with the aggressor state in Ukraine. He considers this a ban on the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which does not exist in Ukraine as such but, instead, operates through its proxy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).
In 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew recognized the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) as an independent Church with canonical status. However, this still left thousands of parishes under the jurisdiction of the UOC-MP. After Russian dictator Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, the UOC-MP unofficially separated itself from the ROC. The new law calls upon the UOC-MP to do so formally or face a process that would lead to its disbanding.
The laity and clergy of the UOC-MP have called upon their head, Metropolitan Onufriy, to fulfill the state's demands, publish a letter of withdrawal from the ROC, and inform all local churches about it.
When the law was presented to the Ukrainian parliament, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy informed Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew about it, stating: “An independent country and an independent nation must also be spiritually independent. Today, Moscow is losing another lever of influence on Ukraine and Ukrainians.”
The day after that telephone conversation, a delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate led by Metropolitan Ilarion of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada visited Ukraine and met with both Metropolitan Epifaniy of the OCU and Patriarch Sviatoslav of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). “The atmosphere encountered by the delegation has been positive everywhere,” a well-informed source told orthodoxtimes.com, noting: “The Ecumenical Patriarch’s effort and desire is for all Orthodox Christians in Ukraine to unite within a single Church.”
But this didn’t stop the Pope from declaring: “Let those who want to pray be able to pray in the church they consider theirs. Please let no Christian church be abolished directly or indirectly: the churches are not to be touched.” The Ukrainian Embassy to the Holy See, in a statement posted a few hours later on X, said the Pope's concern “is unfounded. The law in no way concerns ‘the freedom of one who prays.'”
Instead, the tweet continued, the law aims “to establish logical and reasonable restrictions that are necessary in a democratic society” to protect the nation, “which is facing aggression on a vast scale by a state that uses the church, particularly the Russian Orthodox Church — both in Russia and through its affiliates in Ukraine — as a weapon and a launching pad of aggression not only against Ukraine but also against the civilized world.”
His Beatitude Patriarch Sviatoslav has emphasized that Law 8371 “is not a ban on the Church, but a means of protection from the danger of using religion as a weapon (”weaponization of religion”).” According to the Head of the UGCC, this law aims to protect the religious environment of Ukraine from the militarization of religion, which has become characteristic of the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in the context of war. As the Religious Information Service of Ukraine (RISU) points out, the term “weaponization of religion” is also used by the Synod of the Anglican Church, speaking about the dangers of the militarization of the ROC.
But just as Pope Francis (i) blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the expansion of NATO to countries that experienced Russian oppression, rather than on Russia’s imperialistic ambitions; and just as he (ii) called upon Ukraine to have the “courage” to raise the “white flag”, instead of demanding that Russia cease its genocidal war against Ukraine and withdraw to its own borders, (iii) he now criticizes Ukraine for defending itself against a renegade pseudo-religious body that has abandoned the teachings of Jesus Christ for the evil agenda of a totalitarian state, while ignoring the vicious persecution of Christians in Russia itself and the Ukrainian territories it has occupied.
Pope Francis would be well advised to read two reports released on July 5, 202 4]by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad.
The first is entitled Russia Country Update. According to the USCIRF’s website:
“Since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian authorities have continued their systematic harassment and prosecution of religious minority communities within the Russian Federation, while simultaneously launching the largest crackdown on independent civil society in decades. This country update… discusses the Russian government’s use of vague, problematic legislation to oppress religious communities and fine and imprison members for their peaceful religious activities.”
The second is entitled Russia’s Religious Freedom Violations in Ukraine. As the website states: “For nearly ten years, the Russian Federation through its military and proxy forces has committed gross religious freedom violations in Ukraine. Following Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea, Russian-installed authorities there and in Donbas have enforced repressive Russian laws that severely curtail religious freedom and target religious minorities. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian military forces have frequently damaged and destroyed religious buildings and other sites and killed or injured those sheltering or worshiping in these places. In areas under Russian control, de-facto authorities have abducted and tortured religious leaders and enforced the same repressive Russian legal mechanisms that were imposed in Crimea and Donbas. Furthermore, official Russian state discourse justifying and supporting the war has frequently resorted to rhetoric demonizing Jews, distorting the Holocaust, denigrating ‘non-traditional’ religious groups and the LGBTQI+ community, and characterizing Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine as justified based on religion.”
In short, it's time for the Pope to stop being an apologist for a brutal Evil Empire, and start standing up for freedom, democracy and true Christian values.
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