Pope Francis spoke out strongly on Sunday against any move to penalize a Church that is in the midst of political conflict.
Following the Angelus prayer at St. Peter's, Pope Francis expressed his fear regarding religious freedom in Ukraine.
“I continue to follow with sorrow the fighting in Ukraine and the Russian Federation,” the Pope said. “And in thinking about the laws recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the freedom of those who pray, because those who truly pray always pray for all. A person does not commit evil because of praying. If someone commits evil against his people, he will be guilty for it, but he cannot have committed evil because he prayed."
"So let those who want to pray be allowed to pray in what they consider their Church," the Pontiff continued. "Please, let no Christian Church be abolished directly or indirectly. Churches are not to be touched!”
Francis made his remarks days after the Ukrainian Parliament passed a law that prohibits any religious organization from maintaining ties with a government at war with Ukraine. It singles out the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting the invasion and being “an accomplice in war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate considers itself the only canonical [legitimate] Orthodox Church in Ukraine. It sees the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was granted a decree of autocephaly -- self-rule -- from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2018, to be schismatic.
Already on May 27, 2022, following a Church-wide council in Kyiv, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church announced its full independence and autonomy from the Moscow Patriarchate. The move was made as a protest against the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, the new law singles out this Church, as some in Ukraine feel the announcement of independence has not done enough to separate the Church from Moscow.
[In photo above, members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church pray at the closed entrance of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra in Kyiv on August 20, the day the parliament voted to ban the Moscow-linked Church.]
Support from Catholics
On Tuesday, after the Pope's words, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, based in Kyiv, released a video and accompanying article expressing the views of its patriarch, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, on the matter – views that are sympathetic with the aim of the new legislation.
“The Primate [Sviatoslav] noted that the Russian aggressor weaponizes everything it touches including the economy and the journalistic word, which transforms into propaganda,” the Ukrainian Catholic Church said. “He blackmails the world by seizing the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, causing environmental disasters in Ukraine. He seeks to use even holy things as a weapon.”
Sviatoslav said that the Ukrainian religious community has become a “target of attack by the Russian authorities, who intend to militarize even religion.”
“The ideology of the ‘Russian world’ discredits the Christian message in the eyes and conscience of the modern man,” he said. “Suddenly, war is sanctified in his name.”
Sviatoslav said that the new law is aimed at protecting freedom of religion in Ukraine from this type of manipulation by the aggressor state.”
“Just as every European state does when trying to protect its religious environment, for example, from Islamic extremists of the Islamic state or others who try to disrupt religious peace in a specific country,” said the patriarch. “Ukrainian Churches are striving to engage in a constructive dialogue with the Ukrainian state and our legislators to establish a partnership model or relations between the state and the Churches, asserting the equality of all religions, all Churches and all religious organizations before the state.
Sviatoslav also recently met with the head of the cultural department of the German Embassy in Ukraine, Lisa Heike. He told her that the new law is not a ban on the Church but its “protection from the danger of militarization of religion by the aggressor.”
Orthodox condemnation
Nevertheless, there was condemnation of the new law across much of the Orthodox world. And the World Council of Churches said it is “deeply alarmed by the potential for unjustified collective punishment of an entire religious community and violation of the principles of freedom of religion or belief.”
As might be expected, the website of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was replete with articles condemning the legislation. Earlier this week, the lead article was about Pope Francis’ comments on Sunday. It also spotlighted letters of support from the leaders of the Armenian Orthodox Church, the Antiochian Orthodox Church, and the Serbian Orthodox Church.
In an interview with the BBC, Metropolitan Clement, head of the Information and Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, compared the new law to religious repression during Soviet times.
“Few people pay attention to the fact that first of all, the new law violates another law — on decommunization,” Clement said. “One of the first decrees to be issued by [Vladimir] Lenin after his coming to power was the decree on the Church. Then he adopted decrees on the confiscation of her property and on depriving her of registration.”
Metropolitan Epiphanius, Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), has stated that the law makes it possible for Ukrainians to reject the “Russian yoke.” He has urged Orthodox Christians to join the OCU and is ready for a dialogue with Metropolitan Onuphry of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
