Ukraine's Orthodox Church ban: Justified or not?

Ukrainian religious organizations will soon be forbidden to work together with the Russian Orthodox Church. The ban mainly affects the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Up until 2022, this church answered to the Russian Orthodox Church. However, some three months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of that year, it announced its independence and autonomy from the Moscow Patriarchate. Some of the current debate centers on whether the announcement was meant seriously or was just empty words.

The draft bill on the ban provoked months of heated debate, also in Europe. But when the Ukrainian Parliament, or Verkhovna Rada, finally approved the bill on August 20, there was not much reaction either from the European Union or other Western partners of Kyiv.

Under the law, Ukrainian religious organizations affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church have nine months to end their relations with the Patriarchate of Moscow. 

EU: Ukraine guarantees religious freedom

Is the ban compatible with religious freedom? Ukraine's constitution and laws guarantee freedom of religion and belief, as laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Peter Stano, the EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, told DW that the European Commission had confirmed this in its report on Ukraine for the Enlargement Package adopted on November 8, 2023.

"In general, Ukrainian public authorities enforce these rights," he said.

Stano said the European Commission was aware that Kyiv is taking legal measures against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate because the Patriarchate supported Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.

"We have taken note of Ukraine’s Parliament adopting today a law prohibiting the activities of religious organizations affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine on the grounds of national security and prevention of foreign interference from Russia," he said.

Complex situation

Teona Laverlashvili, a visiting fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, told DW that the EU obviously did not want to interfere in this matter and would also not make a big deal of it in accession negotiations with Kyiv.

According to Laverlashvili, the EU evaluates potential member states on the basis of the Copenhagen criteria laid down by the European Council in 1993. These place the main emphasis on stable institutions, democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the protection of minorities, she said.

"In theory, the prohibition of religious organizations connected to the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine can be scrutinized under these criteria, particularly concerning freedom of religion and the right to association," she said.

"However, in practice, the complexity of the situation in Ukraine must be factored in," Laverlashvili said.

High treason, collaboration and complicity

At the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, Ukrainian authorities began more than 100 penal procedures against priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Twenty-six of those priests were convicted, according to Ukraine's security service, most of them on charges of high treason, collaboration with Russia and complicity.

The Russian Orthodox Church calls the invasion of Ukraine "a holy war" and propagates the notion that the entire territory of Ukraine "must be brought under Russia's sphere of influence alone." That is why Kyiv sees this church as the ideological arm of the Kremlin and as its accomplice in war crimes.

A study by the Ukrainian State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience showed that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate remains an organization whose center is in Russia. It said there were still internal links to the Russian Orthodox Church, to which it is subordinated, and that its affiliation with the Moscow Patriarchate has not been cut as claimed.

The Ukrainian church has now officially dispensed with the supplement "Moscow Patriarchate," which the country's Constitutional Court ordered it to take on in late 2022.

No international legal examination of the ban

Before it presented the bill, the Ukrainian government could have consulted with international bodies as to the constitutionality of the move, such as the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, which examines whether legal acts conform with European standards. An assessment of this kind was called for by 46 Ukrainian parliamentarians.

But the parliamentary speaker, Ruslan Stefantschuk, rejected the initiative, saying it was unnecessary. "We use this mechanism with really complex bills," he told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

There was no external assessment in the end.

According to the parliamentary committee for EU integration, the bill is line with Ukraine's international obligations.

The committee members referred back to the part of above-mentioned Ukraine report by the European Commission dealing with the guarantee of fundamental rights. That report describes how Ukraine has been taking legal steps since November 2022 against the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church — not to be confused with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is autocephalous, or self-governing, and not the subject of any ban.

These steps included sanctions on high-ranking church representatives who are accused of supporting the Russian invasion and searches of church-owned spaces.

In its report, the European Commission said Kyiv wanted "to prevent foreign intervention by Russia through a religious organization, without prosecuting normal members of the church."

National security wins over freedom of religion

Teona Lavrelashvili said the EU's intention is plain to see. She considers the ban necessary to protect Ukraine's national security.

"In the context of the ongoing war, the EU will likely avoid interference, recognizing Ukraine’s measures as symbolic acts demonstrating Kyiv’s desire for spiritual independence from Moscow," she said.

Dmytro Wowk, a law professor and religious expert from the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University in Kharkiv who is currently teaching in New York, also believes that the ban will probably not hinder Ukraine's European integration.

Teona Laverlashivili believes that Brussels will demand assurances from Kyiv when negotiations on Ukraine's EU accession are resumed.

She said the government must ensure that no one is discriminated against because of their religious convictions under the new law.

This article was originally written in Ukrainian.