US Institute for War Studies
Expropriations, arrests, language ban: How Russia wants to wipe out Ukrainian churches in the occupied territories
The orthodox church Mala-Komyshevaha near Kharkiv, which was used by the Russian armed forces as a military hospital
© Evgeniy Maloletka/AP/DPA
The Orthodox Church in Ukraine was already under pressure before the Russian invasion. Now the believers in the occupied territories are being persecuted.
According to experts, Russia has also cracked down on Ukrainian religious communities since the beginning of the war. The new Orthodox Church in Ukraine was particularly affected, wrote the US Institute for War Studies (ISW). Russia’s goal is therefore to wipe out the Church in the occupied territories, which is independent of Moscow. Churches were expropriated and priests arrested arbitrarily. Church services in Ukrainian are forbidden.
However, Protestant churches are also affected by the persecution by the occupation authorities. A law that has been in force in Russia since 2016, which only allows state-registered religious communities, serves as the legal basis.
Orthodox Christians in Ukraine under pressure
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine was only founded in 2018 with state support. The Russian Orthodox Church, on the other hand, regards Ukraine as its sphere of influence and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as the only legitimate one. However, the latter had also broken away from Moscow after the Russian invasion last year.
In turn, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church itself complained about massive repression by the government in Kiev. The Ukrainian state organs are raiding the church. Clergy are encouraged to change churches or expelled from places of worship. Among other things, the monks of the church should leave the cave monastery in the capital Kiev, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage. they refuse.
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Russia invaded Ukraine more than 13 months ago and controls about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimea peninsula that was annexed in 2014.