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On August 20, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a law to restrict the activities of religious associations linked to Russia in Ukraine. Theologian Priit Rohtmets writes about the birth story of the law and its consequences for Ukrainian society.
Since 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea, more and more attention has been paid in Ukraine to the role of the Orthodox Church as an instrument of influence of the Russian state. Already in the 1990s, the Orthodox community in Ukraine, which was previously under the control of the Russian Orthodox Church, split into three large churches, the largest community of which until the start of the full-scale war was the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).
As a direct consequence of the events of 2014, the Ukrainian state took the initiative to have an independent Orthodox Church in Ukraine, with no ties to Moscow. In order to do this correctly according to church law, in June 2016 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine turned to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople for him to confirm the ecclesiastical independence. In 2019, the ecumenical patriarch issued a letter of confirmation, or tomos, with which the independent Orthodox Church in Ukraine was formed. However, the church subordinate to Moscow refused to join the new church and remained active within the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale war in late February 2022, the Orthodox Church has been under constant public scrutiny due to statements made by Patriarch Kirill. Despite the condemnation of Russian aggression, the UOC-MP has been in a difficult situation since the beginning of the war, because it is a giant organization belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church, which is located in the aggressor country and supports the war. Before the war, the church had a total of about 12,000 congregations, by now the number of congregations has dropped by about a quarter, to about 9,000. In Russian-occupied territories, including Crimea, part of the church structure has been brought directly under the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church, while in other parts of Ukraine, the tendency to leave the UOC-MP to join the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine has deepened since 2022. Despite this, the UOC-MP network is large and located all over Ukraine.
Even though several hundred of the UOC-MP’s clergy have already been killed and church buildings have been destroyed in the war, there are also priests in the church who have cooperated with the Russian forces and shared information about local conditions. There are also clerics in the church who are either on trial or have already been convicted on suspicion of cooperation with the Russian authorities and spreading the ideology of the Russian world.
This has caused a lot of criticism against the UOC-MP in Ukraine. In many parts of Ukraine, local residents have driven UOC-MP priests out of their congregations and taken over the congregations. Distrust has also grown against the UOC-MP metropolitan leader Onufriy, who has chosen the path of silence for now, hoping that the contradictions will ease after the end of the war.
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Already in the last days of March 2022, two drafts were registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine recommending the termination of the UOC-MP’s activities in Ukraine. Of these, bill 8371 – that's how this law is known in Ukraine – became a law. At the end of May 2022, the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine also started to support the proposal to end the activities of the UOC-MP.
The bill was processed in the Verkhovna Rada for more than two years, as it has received its share of criticism both in Ukraine and in the Western world and has been a measuring stick between rival parties in Ukrainian parliamentary politics. Of course, the Russian authorities and church representatives have also been able to take aim at the draft, claiming that religious freedom is not respected in Ukraine and instead it is planned to persecute one of the largest religious associations in Ukraine. This has had an impact on religious circles and Republican politicians in the United States, who have also criticized the introduction of the bill and its passage into law.
The bill cleared first reading on October 19, 2023, and then again stalled in the Verkhovna Rada for months, until on July 23 of this year, a group of MPs demanded to put the draft on the agenda, blocking the floor of the parliament for this purpose. The session was then adjourned for several weeks, but the demand had consequences: in August, the bill was sent to second reading and President Zelenskyy announced that he would also support the adoption of the bill, arguing that it would strengthen Ukraine's spiritual independence.
Ukrainian religious leaders emphasized that the biggest threat to religious freedom in Ukraine is not the bill under discussion in the Verkhovna Rada, but the brutal war waged by Russia in Ukraine. Religion has become a tool of manipulation to cover up war crimes.
The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which gathered on August 17, also affirmed support for the draft to become law. The council includes all major Ukrainian religious associations. Religious figures emphasized the great support of Ukrainian society for the bill and confirmed that religious freedom is respected in Ukraine. At the same time, the religious leaders emphasized that the biggest threat to religious freedom in Ukraine is not the bill under discussion in the Verkhovna Rada, but the brutal war waged by Russia in Ukraine, as a result of which hundreds of clergymen have died, places of worship have been destroyed and religious freedom has been trampled underfoot. Clergy have been tortured and murdered and pogroms have been organized in the occupied territories. Religion has become a tool of manipulation to cover up war crimes.
On August 20, the bill was adopted in the 450-member Verkhovna Rada with 265 votes in favor. The law states that the activities of a foreign religious organization located in a country that commits or has committed armed aggression against Ukraine and/or temporarily occupies part of the territory of Ukraine – as well as an organization that directly or indirectly (including through public statements of leaders or other governing bodies) supports aggression against Ukraine – are prohibited on the territory of Ukraine.
It is symbolic that President Zelenskyy signed the law on Ukraine's Independence Day, August 24. The law will enter into force in a month and state agencies will be given three months to develop the law's regulations. Thus, it will take four months from the moment of the adoption of the law for it to enter into force and to develop regulations. This time includes, among other things, the formation of a commission, which must be independent of the executive branch and will carry out the investigation of the existence of ties, i.e. connections to Moscow, and/or investigate the spread of the ideology of the Russian world in religious associations.
The law does not mention the UOC-MP, but this does not mean that the main goal of the law is not to shut down religious associations connected to Moscow or to pressure them to end ties with the Russian Church.
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The implementation of the law will take a minimum of nine months, as the commission’s investigation will take several months, and if violations are discovered, religious associations will be ordered to eliminate them. In reality, however, the time required to comply with the law will be significantly longer. Local experts in Ukraine have said that it will likely take years to conclude the activities or ties of religious associations subordinate to Moscow. There are also more direct estimates that it is practically impossible to implement this law.
The law lays out a three-step process: first, a government agency identifies an organization potentially associated with the aggressor – a religious community, not the entire church structure. In other words, the law deals with identifying the connections of each congregation separately. It should be said that in the legal space of Ukraine, religious organizations can exist freely without registration.
The investigation commission then informs the organization and the relevant state authorities. Finally, it submits its conclusions to the court for a final decision, because it is the court that makes the decision to close the institutions connected to Russia. Since there are thousands of congregations belonging to the structure of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine, there are thousands of court cases ahead in connection with the implementation of the law, because the closure decision can also be appealed.
The initiative for change does not come from the top, but from the grassroots level, because the law motivates the communities to act and thereby shakes the entire religious landscape of Ukraine.
Although representatives of the UOC-MP have for some time been cultivating the image of a martyr church, which the authorities unjustly want to close with the help of the new law, there have also been more positive assessments of the impact of the law. For example, Ukrainian clergyman and theologian Cyril Hovorun believes that the law may change the status quo of the Ukrainian religious landscape.
According to him, the two churches – the UOC-MP and the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine – have figuratively been digging themselves into a trench since the beginning of the war. Everyone is defending their status quo, seemingly content with their current position. The adopted law may force these churches to act and change the status quo and, in the best case, also bridge the gap between the two churches. According to him, however, the initiative for this does not come from the top, but from the grassroots level, because the law motivates the communities to act and thereby shakes the entire religious landscape of Ukraine.
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