kyiv has accused the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of complicity in Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine has adopted a regulation to ban spiritual teams linked to Moscow, in a transfer concentrating on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which the federal government has accused of complicity in Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Parliament authorised the regulation on Tuesday by 265 votes to 29.
MP Iryna Herashchenko mentioned it was a matter of nationwide safety.
“It is a historic vote. Parliament has handed a regulation banning the institution of a department of the aggressor nation in Ukraine,” he wrote on Telegram.
Most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians, however the religion has been divided between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), historically allied with the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, and the unbiased Orthodox Church of Ukraine, acknowledged since 2019.
The UOC claims to have severed ties with Moscow after the February 2022 invasion, however kyiv has forged doubt on that declare and has launched dozens of felony circumstances, together with treason fees, in opposition to the church’s clerics. No less than one has been despatched to Russia as a part of a prisoner alternate.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the vote as a step towards strengthening Ukraine’s “non secular independence” and is predicted to signal the invoice into regulation.
Russia condemned the measure as a “highly effective blow in opposition to all Orthodoxy,” whereas its church, whose patriarch has characterised the invasion of Ukraine as a “holy conflict,” known as the invoice “unlawful.”
Ukrainian leaders have accused the UOC of instigating Russia’s 30-month conflict in opposition to Ukraine by spreading pro-Russian propaganda and harbouring spies.
UOC spokesman Metropolitan Klyment reiterated that the church had no ties to “overseas centres” and criticised the invoice for concentrating on church property.
“The Ukrainian Orthodox Church will proceed to dwell as a real church, acknowledged by the overwhelming majority of practising Ukrainian believers and church buildings world wide,” he informed Hromadske TV.
Opinion polls present that round 82 p.c of Ukrainians don’t belief the UOC.
The method of banning the church is prone to take months as a result of every Orthodox parish operates as a person entity and would have 9 months to determine whether or not it desires to depart.
After this era, circumstances may very well be introduced earlier than the courts to ban it.
In kyiv, believers prayed in entrance of the historic Pechersk Lavra monastery, the previous seat of the IOU, which was raided by authorities in 2022.
“There is no such thing as a politics right here. We simply come to hope for our kids and our family members… I’ve by no means seen any KGB brokers,” mentioned Svetlana, 56, who declined to present her surname, referring to accusations of collaboration with the safety providers.
The rift between Ukrainian church buildings and people linked to Russia was sparked by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict between kyiv and Moscow-backed separatists within the east.
The chief of the Istanbul-based Jap Orthodox Church in 2019 granted autocephaly (spiritual independence) from the Moscow Patriarchate to a breakaway wing, known as the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).
On the OCU-affiliated a part of the Lavra monastery, 21-year-old Igor informed the AFP information company he supported the ban.
He accused the Russian Orthodox Church of being an agent of the Kremlin that “has metastasized a lot that we’ll struggle it for many years.”