On August 20, the Ukrainian Parliament banned the public worship of the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church (), the direct heir of the Church founded inKiev in 988, from which the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow
Patriarchate originated. This Church, rebuilt in 1990 with the regained
independence of the country, is canonically linked to the Moscow
Patriarchate, but is self-administered, that is, it enjoys total
autonomy, which makes it canonically independent from the Mother Church,
so much so that it has the right to consecrate the Great Myron, or a
mixture of more than forty essential oils and olive oil which, blessed
on Holy Thursday by the bishops of the Synod, is distributed to all the
eparchies of that Church to be used for Confirmation, for the
consecration of churches and altars, creating new structures. The ban on
the exercise of worship is contained in the law, For the protection of
the constitutional system in the context of the activities of religious
organizations, which makes the presence and activity in Ukraine of
Churches or religious families that have ties to the Russian Church,
considered an "active part" in the war that has been devastating the
country for over two years, illegal. At the same time, the Ukrainian
government rejected the request of the Romanian Orthodox Church to
establish its own eparchy in Ukrainian territory for the
Romanian-speaking faithful residing there. The purpose of the measure,
politically justified by security reasons, arising from the conflict
that opposes the country to Russia, actually has origins dating back to
before the start of the war and is a consequence of the creation at the
end of 2018 of the autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, baptized by
the Patriarchate of Constantinople. This Church was established with the
active support of the President of the Republic pro tempore, with the
declared aim of removing the representation of the Orthodox faithful and
the control of more than 8,000 parishes from the ancient Church of the
country. Less prosaically, the real objective of the operation is to
take possession of the immense and unregistered patrimony of the
canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, consisting of places of worship,
monasteries, an immense real estate and especially land patrimony, made
up of cultivable and buildable lands, on which activities are carried
out within the monasteries which, as happens in the Orthodox tradition,
often materialize in economic and productive activities. In other words,
it is not only a political dispute, but above all an economic one, given
that there are no theological differences between the two religious
entities, which are reflected in the management and membership of the
clergy and the ecclesiastical patrimony. Only in the last two years has
some element of differentiation been artfully created, consisting of the
legal shifting of the date of celebration of Orthodox Christmas from
January 7 to December 25, assuming the Western tradition, with the
intent of distancing itself from the Slavic one and getting closer to
Europe, followed by the cancellation of the saints of Russian origin
from the Ukrainian liturgical calendar.
Two Churches, identical values, divergent economic and power interests
There is nothing to distinguish the two Churches with regard to their
positions on ethical matters and even less on theological matters,
because both religious confessions oppose the values of freedom in
sexual matters, gender policies, ethical policies, euthanasia and
abortion, which characterize the secular West; both want to establish a
symphonic relationship with the State and this even if the Ukrainian one
has made a choice of field in favor of the so-called autocephalous
Orthodox Church, considered schismatic by the majority of the Orthodox
Patriarchates. In order to legitimize the measure, the Ukrainian
government took care to have it approved by the All-Ukrainian Council of
Churches and Religious Organizations (which includes all religious
denominations in the country, but the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox
Church was excluded from the session). In its resolution of August 16,
2024, the Council reiterated its condemnation of the canonical Orthodox
Church, declaring it "an accomplice to the bloody crimes of the Russian
invaders," adding: "We support the President's legislative initiative
aimed at preventing the activity of organizations (with ties to Russia)
in our country[...]. We affirm that religious rights and freedoms are
respected in Ukraine, even in the face of a brutal war." In timid
disagreement with this position, the primate of the Greek-Catholic
Church of Ukraine expressed his doubts, arguing that the law confers the
stigma of persecution on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, thus
risking further strengthening its position through martyrdom.
It should be emphasized that even before the adoption of this law, in
order to "legalize" the passage of churches and monasteries from
affiliation to the canonical Orthodox Church to the schismatic one, the
provisions of Orthodox canon law were used, according to which the
ownership of the place of worship and the affiliation of the parish to
the confession, take place on the basis of the decision of the faithful
who belong to that building, who, meeting in the parish seat, decide by
majority on a different affiliation.
Thus, with the complicity of the state security services, the churches
of the canonical Orthodox confession are invaded by nationalists trained
for this purpose, who declare themselves faithful of that church and
decide during an assembly to belong to the schismatic confession. The
local bodies and the authorities present certify the correctness of the
procedure, determining the spoliation of the place of worship in favor
of the schismatic Orthodox Church. The judiciary confirms. With this
procedure, accompanied by violence and beatings, arrests and harassment
of ministers of worship and the faithful, in these two and a half years
of war the passage of more than 350 churches and monasteries in the
direction of the schismatic Orthodox Church has occurred, in violation
of every principle of religious freedom. The approval of the law does
nothing but strengthen this procedure by making it more streamlined and
almost automatic, bypassing possible resistance from the judiciary to
certify what happens on the ground. And finally, it should be noted that
all this happened despite the fact that in the aftermath of the
beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Synod of the
canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its Patriarch himself had
pronounced a firm condemnation of the "special operation", accentuating,
through a modification of the Statutes, the separation from the
Patriarchate of Moscow, also condemning the positions personally taken
by the Patriarch of Moscow Kirill in support of the so-called "special
operation", ordering the cancellation of any reference to him in the
diptychs (prayers at the beginning of Mass), which constitutes an
expression of distancing and extraneousness, as well as firm
condemnation of the unmentioned prelate.
Ukraine and the Community aequis
What is happening casts a sinister light on Ukraine's adherence to the
principles of religious freedom and jurisdictional protection that are
part of the legal civilization that is an integral part of the Community
aequis and that the country should commit to respecting when it requests
adherence. Certainly the law approved by Ukraine, which modifies the
existing legislation on religious freedom, presents elements of
non-compliance with the Ukrainian Constitution itself and although,
dictated by needs that we could define as warlike and emergency, it
cannot reach the point of extending the possible personal responsibility
of some adherents or ministers of worship or ecclesiastics to the entire
religious organization. It cannot be forgotten that for Western law
political responsibility, and especially that of a criminal nature, is
personal, and that therefore any episodes or behaviors that are
characterized as a violation of criminal norms must be sanctioned at an
individual level, leaving intact the guarantees of collective freedom,
especially when these concern an entire religious confession and
therefore millions of believers who belong to it and the public exercise
of worship. What is happening should lead the EU to reflect carefully on
the decision of the European Parliament and the Commission to allow
Ukraine to join the European Union, considering the fact that its
presence introduces and strengthens elements of legal incivility and
violation of rights and community equis, which today characterize the
behavior of some countries such as Hungary and sometimes Poland, but
which tomorrow could strengthen and become one of the peculiar and
distinctive characteristics of the Union.
On the other hand, the economic and political significance of the
operation that sees the interests of well-identified Ukrainian
ecclesiastical circles satisfied, colluding with the Patriarchate of
Constantinople, the true architect of the entire operation and direct
and economic beneficiary of the expropriation of the goods and
properties of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, cannot be ignored.
When it is happening, it fits perfectly into a hegemonic plan that the
Patriarchate of Constantinople supports, aimed at taking control of
Orthodoxy in Europe and conquering for a Patriarchate, without real
jurisdiction over its faithful, a space for exercising power that proves
to be functional to itself and at the same time puts itself at the
service of geostrategic interests that are headed by some governments of
Western countries, which generously support it and support it in
carrying out its work.
From our point of view as lay people, we can only express disgust and
profound contempt for these interest groups that sometimes behave in
ways similar to those of the mafia and that in fact turn out to be
blasphemous and profoundly offensive to the very divinity in which they
claim to believe. Just think of their habit of sanctioning their
agreements and contracts with the concelebration of a mass in order to
call the divinity to witness the alliance, thus distinguishing
themselves by blasphemy.
While we respect religious freedom and freedom of conscience, from a
political-institutional perspective we cannot but deplore the
progressive degeneration of relations between the State and religious
confessions that these behaviors produce, inducing the entire legal
system of the European Union to adopt a neo-jurisdictionalist attitude
towards the phenomenon and religious confessions, characterized by
considering every religious confession, necessarily, a tinsel of state
and institutional power aimed at dominating consciences, tying it to the
interests of a part of the nation, depriving religious belonging of a
large part of that solidarity-based and profoundly human inspiration
that should characterize it. All the more so since the phenomenon does
not only concern Ukraine, but is also spreading to other states: this is
the recent case of Estonia where the State has in fact forced the local
Orthodox Church, belonging to the Patriarchate of Moscow, to request its
own autocephaly and of neighboring Latvia which has attributed
autocephaly by law to its Orthodox Church, violating the confessional
autonomy and therefore the secularity of the institutions and the State.
The Editorial Staff
G. Cimbalo, The evolution of relations between State and Churches in New
Ukraine. In search of Autocephaly, in "Diritto e religioni" 2-2020,
pp.252-304; ID., The Ukrainian war and the destabilization of ecumenical
relations, "Coscienza e libertà", 2021, n° 61/62, pp. 135-144; ID., The
hushed-up role of the Churches in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in
"Diritto e religioni" n. 2 of 2021, pp. 487-512.
https://www.ucadi.org/2024/09/01/la-liberta-religiosa-in-ucraina-tra-martirio-e-affari/
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