Ukraine's war on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

An event that has so far gone unreported in the BBC, although Al Jazeera and Reuters covered it, is the banning on August 20 in Ukraine of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), historically linked to the Russian Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was recognised by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2019 as an alternative to the UOC. Reuters even call the UOC a ‘Russia-linked minority church’ in the title of their article, as if it hadn’t always been Ukraine’s main Orthodox church until 2019.

The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada gleefully passing the law to ban the UOC:

Soon after, obnoxious representatives of the regime were appearing at Orthodox churches to evict worshippers and intimidate them with loud music:

This is a cultural conflict that has been building since the start of Russia’s SMO, as I mentioned a few times in a post at the start of this year, notably that Ukraine had moved Christmas to December 25th to align with the Protestant world, and was wishing death to Russians at Orthodox Christmas via devils singing in a church.

There was a long-running standoff over the historical Kiev Pechersk Lavra, which was first raided by the SBU in November 2022 amidst ‘suspicions’ that Russia was using it to store weapons and plan sabotage operations. Monks were ordered to evict the monastery, which they resisted until they were reportedly finally evicted in July 2024. Their supporters were routinely ridiculed and harrassed by the protesters who came to support the police.

Other UOC churches that have been claimed by the Kiev authorities have been used for disrespectful (some would say blasphemous) performances such as this strange Witches’ Sabbath performance by a bunch of annoying theatre kids thinking they were being edgy, featuring someone in a Putin mask:

Ukrainian nationalists also sang folk song Cherbona Kalyna (popularised by the Nazi-collaborating UPA during WW2) in a church:

In April of this year, Russian authorities intercepted religious artworks and paraphernalia intended for Orthodox churches, that had been filled with explosives which could be remotely detonated:

Since the recent incursion into Kursk, Orthodox icons plundered from churches in Kursk have appeared for sale online, some of them even called a ‘trophy’:

This might seem tasteless and shocking but it really shouldn’t, compared to how Ukrainian forces targeted churches like St. Michael’s Cathedral in Mariupol in the early days of the conflict - before the DPR soldiers arrived in Mariupol, as the caretaker of the church said soon after:

Unless you follow this blog or pay very close attention yourself you probably wouldn’t even be aware of it, because at the time they had the BBC and other western media covering for them, by implying that the church was damaged by Russian forces.

This post was republished at The Revolution Report.