The head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, Viktor Yelenskyi, noted that when Ukraine started to celebrate World Religion Day, it was difficult to imagine that compatriots living in occupied territories would suffer from persecution and that hundreds of churches would be destroyed there, priests and believers would be killed, and members of religious communities would be imprisoned. Whole communities of Baptists and Pentecostals have been displaced from Russia-captured areas.
This is stated on the agency’s website.
Viktor Yelenskyi emphasized that Ukraine has historically been a refuge for those persecuted for their faith. And today, religious freedom in Ukraine is not a slogan, it is embodied in life and is an unprecedented example of cooperation between various religious organizations for the modern world to follow.
However, today in Brussels, representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church spoke about the alleged persecution of religion in Ukraine. An information campaign is directed against draft law 8371, claiming that the new legislation aims “ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
The head of the watchdog agency explained that the Moscow Patriarchate, which controls the UOC, is a direct party to the war against Ukraine. This law is not discriminatory as it does not prohibit religion, instead aiming to protect the nation against the malign influence of the religious organization’s administrative center located in the aggressor state. Once this affiliation is disrupted, the UOC will continue its activities in Ukraine. If nothing is done, the government will seek to terminate its operations through court.
