At a briefing on Feb 17, the spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova, touched on the topic of Ukraine’s efforts to ban the Moscow Patriarchate. She reported that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is looking into four draft laws, which provide for the restriction of the church’s operations, alienation of property, and title change. According to the Russian side, this constitutes “persecution” of the UOC (MP).
Zakharova also claimed that these draft laws had caused outrage among many Ukrainians, Russian media report.
The background for such draft laws to appear, according to the spokesperson, is not the Russian invasion, but Washington’s meddling. “This is, of course, suicidal,” she said, commenting on Ukraine’s moves.
“Everything that we’ve seen happening on the territory of Ukraine over recent decades is the result of the activities of the relevant North Atlantic political groups, the “deep state” in the USA and Great Britain and, of course, the special services of these countries,” said the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
At a time when Russia killed thousands of women and children in Ukraine, Zakharova noted that the “persecution” of the UOC (MP) is “not cynicism,” but “one of the signs of the genocide that is currently being committed in Ukraine by the hands of North Atlantic structures and elites.”
Earlier, Zakharova hysterically reacted to Ukraine suspending citizenship of some UOC (MP) priests.
It is important to note that every person has the right to freedom of religion and to choose the church organization to which they want to belong. However, when such an organization supports the policy of aggression against another country, spreading anti-Ukrainian ideas, it already crosses the boundaries of freedom of religion and becomes a threat to national security and sovereignty.
In this case, the UOC (MP) acts as a medium of pro-Russian influence on Ukrainians, which in the conditions of Russia’s war on Ukraine greatly affects the nation. That is why the Verkhovna Rada is trying to put an end to Russian influence on Ukrainians through the Church.
