Parliamentary committee backs banning Russian branch of Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Searches in UOC-MP (Photo:SECURITY SERVICE OF UKRAINE)
The Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy of the Ukrainian parliament has supported a bill to ban religious organizations affiliated with Russia – including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) – Ukrainian MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported via the Telegram messenger on Dec. 9.
Zheleznyak said the decision would help to “purge the Russian World from Ukraine.”
Another MP Mykola Kniazhytsky explained the committee had backed three bills which would ban the Russian Orthodox Church and its affiliated organizations, urge the government to transfer the famed Kyiv Pechersk Lavra to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), and to facilitate the broader transition away from UOC-MP – towards the OCU.
On Nov. 22, Ukraine’s SBU security service raided one of Eastern Orthodoxy’s holy sites: the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, as well as a UOC-MP monastery in Rivne Oblast. The raids followed the publication of a video that appeared to depict churchgoers at the Lavra – run by UOC-MP – singing a pro-Russian song.
The Ukrainian government then initiated criminal proceedings on charges of glorifying the so-called “Russian World,” and tasked the SBU with investigating UOC-MP facilities across the country.
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