by Ethan Huff, Natural News:
Christianity is on the chopping block in Ukraine after the nation’s parliament passed a bill to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which has historic ties to the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC).
Unless the UOC breaks fellowship with the Moscow Patriarchate as Ukraine is demanding due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Ukrainian parliament will make Orthodox Christianity illegal.
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The UOC has already denounced the Russian invasion, but this is not enough for the Volodymyr Zelensky regime. According to Zelensky and his henchmen, the UOC is still tied to the ROC, which in their minds warrants persecution in the form of church raids, the arrests of priests, and the eviction of clergy from the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, also known as the Monastery of the Caves.
According to reports, the law will effectively ban the UOC by prohibiting all activities of the Russian Orthodox Church and those of any other religious groups that are tied to it.
“Today, I want to note the work of the Verkhovna Rada,” announced Zelensky after he excitedly signed the legislation into law following its passage by the parliament. “A law on our spiritual independence has been adopted,” is how he spun the bill’s true intent.
(Related: Did you know that Germany is cutting off all future aid to Ukraine after it was revealed that Zelensky is responsible for blowing up Germany’s Nord Stream pipelines?)
“There will be no Moscow Church in Ukraine,” declares Zelensky’s chief of staff
There is another denomination called the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) that sounds similar in name to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) but that is approved by the Zelensky regime as being acceptable in Ukraine.
The OCU was “granted independence” from the Moscow Patriarchate by the Patriarchate of Constantinople back in 2019 before Russia invaded Ukraine. Zelensky approves of the OCU but not the UOC.
“There will be no Moscow Church in Ukraine,” declared Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, following the ban on the UOC.
UOC is still the larger of the two Orthodox churches in Ukraine, as of 2023. Only a very small number of UOC parishes decided to break and join the OCU after Russia invaded, suggesting that most Orthodox ukes side with Russian unity rather than with Zelensky’s forced expulsion of all things Russia from Ukrainian religious society.
Iryna Herashchenko, the first deputy chairwoman of the Verkhovna Rada, commented that the ban on the UOC is “historic” and a “matter of national security.”
While the UOC officially broke ties with the Russian Orthodox Church in 2022 after the invasion, somehow this is still not enough for Zelensky who wants all Orthodox Christians to worship only at his approved OCU congregations.
The OCU, by the way, was birthed in 2019 out of the Istanbul-based Eastern Orthodox Church. Its creation was triggered by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the war between Kyiv and Moscow-based separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Maria Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, condemned the Verkhovna Rada’s vote to ban the UOC. She accused Ukrainian leaders of trying to “destroy true Orthodoxy” with this latest tyrannical move by Zelensky and his henchmen.
Zelensky wrote on social media that he is proud of Ukraine’s parliament for taking this action, arguing that it will “continue to strengthen Ukraine and our society.”
