Protests by UOC parishioners took place near the Kiev Pechersk Lavra
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, after six months of heated debate, approved in the first reading a bill that actually launched the process of banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The decision was supported by 267 deputies (with the required 226). Until the last minute the vote was in doubt and might not take place.
Discussions about a special law to limit the activities of Russian-led churches in Ukraine have continued since the start of the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. The Russian Orthodox Church and its leader, Patriarch Kirill, consistently support the Kremlin’s actions.
Last December, President Vladimir Zelensky joined the fight for “spiritual independence” and, together with the SBU, launched the process of persecuting representatives of the “Russian world” in the UOC. Against the backdrop of attempts to expel this church from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and other ancient churches of Ukraine, a number of bills on a complete or partial ban appeared in the Rada (in June of this year it was reported that the authorities of the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine banned the UOC.).
And although the government, on Zelensky’s instructions, presented its bill a long time ago, and Zelensky himself announced its approval several times, parliament could not vote for almost 10 months. As it turned out, the Servant of the People faction has a powerful lobby of the UOC, and the president himself did not push much for the adoption of the law.
The head of parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, publicly said that there were not enough votes in parliament to approve the document. At the same time, the leader of the majority faction, David Arakhamia, admitted that the adoption of this law is not a priority, and if this is insisted on, some members of the Servant of the People will not vote for the budget and other important laws.
The Rada even collected 240 signatures for consideration of the law in order to stimulate the leadership of the faction. The chairman of the SBU, Vasily Malyuk, also intervened in the matter, who asked the deputies to nevertheless pass a law so that the activities of church communities in which “collaborators” had been identified could be quickly banned.
Deputies of the Verkhovna Rada voted for the most “soft” version of the project, which provides for a difficult and lengthy procedure for banning religious communities associated with Russia. But before the second reading, the document, theoretically, can be changed and tightened, although there may not be enough votes to approve it.
The UOC calls such steps by parliament a violation of human rights and persecution of the church. They insist that since May 2022, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been independent of Moscow, and they promise to challenge the law if it is finally adopted.
Before the vote, some bishops of the UOC even called on deputies to “think about their souls” after death, and also indirectly threatened with “God’s punishment.” Defenders of the UOC in the Servant of the People faction sent similar messages to their colleagues.
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