Pope voices concern about religious freedom in Ukraine after ban on Russian Church

Crix Staff • August 26, 2024

Pope Francis has addressed a new law in Ukraine restricting the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church, voicing concern about its impact on religious freedom in the country.

The Pope’s remarks on Sunday 25 August came just a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky formally signed Law 8371, the measure adopted by the country’s Parliament which prohibits activities by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in Ukraine and bans the activities of any associated religious organisations affiliated with Moscow.

“In thinking about the laws recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the freedom of those who pray,” Francis said during his noontime Angelus address.

“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.”

The Pope went on to say: “Let those who want to pray be allowed to pray in what they consider their Church,” before urging:

“Please, let no Christian church be abolished directly or indirectly. Churches are not to be touched.”

According to media reports, 265 parliamentarians voted for the bill, formally titled “On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activity of Religious Organisations”, while 29 voted against it and another 4 abstained.

Parishes and monastic communities of the Russian-backed church will have 9 months to sever ties with Moscow and instead affiliate with a Ukrainian denomination, according to the terms of the legislation.

The Ukrainian government first introduced the measure in January 2023, and it’s stirred a wide global debate about religious freedom in the context of a national defence crisis.

RELATED: Zelensky’s move against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a step too far

Francis’s comments also came just one day after Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, had made an appeal to the Pope and other world religious leaders “to raise their voices in defence of the persecuted believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church”.

In appearing sympathetic to those Russian objections, Pope Francis may risk alienating members of his own Catholic community in Ukraine. In a recent interview, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the largest of the 23 eastern Catholic churches, defended the new law as being necessary to prevent the weaponisation of religion.

Shevchuk said the new law also aims to offer protection against ideology and narratives being pushed about Ukraine being part of the “Russian world” and about establishing a “Russian peace” in Ukraine.

The major archbishop emphasised that the law should actually protect religious freedom from manipulation, while also acknowledging that “it is important to monitor how it will be implemented in practice”.

RELATED: New law banning Russian Church defended by Ukraine’s top Catholic archbishop

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations likewise have supported the new law.

“The Moscow Patriarchate justifies pogroms and restrictions on religious freedom, torture and murders of priests and pastors, and cynically tramples on God’s instructions and basic norms of universal morality,” the council said in a statement.

In response to the Pope’s comments on Sunday, Ukraine’s embassy to the Holy See told reporters that the the new law does not interfere with anyone’s private ability to pray as they wish.

Retired American lawyer Peter Anderson, however, who tracks issues in the Orthodox world, suggested the response of the embassy isn’t entirely accurate.

“It is true that the law does not prevent persons from praying in their homes; however, they will probably not be able to pray in their own church,” Anderson said, describing the Pope’s comments that churches should not be touched as being “right on”.

Anderson also highlighted that the new law likely means the ROC branch in Ukraine will likely have to be dissolved with its assets transferred to churches approved of by Kyiv.

Photo: Pope Francis delivers Angelus address from the window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, Vatican City State, 25 August 2024. (Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images.)