By Vittorio Nicola Rangeloni, archive, September 2018
The civil war that has been ongoing in Ukraine for four years continues to expand in all directions, including into the religious sphere.
It’s forbidden to speak of a civil war to the authorities in Kiev. According to them, the conflict is purely aimed at the “Russian aggressor,” though for some reason it’s only Ukrainian citizens who bear the brunt of it — apart from a handful of Russian volunteers who are wounded or killed in the trenches of Donbass. But they make up only a small percentage of the victims.
When we think of the Ukrainian conflict, it’s important not to focus solely on the front line where the Ukrainian army fights against the rebel militias of Donetsk and Lugansk. The war is also unfolding in the country’s rear areas, where no “separatist” missile can reach. This war is being waged by the government, directly or indirectly, against its own citizens.
It happens through the repression of those who dare to express dissent toward the country’s political direction. Even the slightest suspicion is enough to be branded a separatist and accused of violating the nation’s interests. This leads to arrests, or, when there’s no legal basis for such actions, less orthodox methods are employed, such as punitive raids by various paramilitary groups made up of young men indoctrinated into artificial nationalism.
It happens through the repression of those who dare to express dissent toward the country’s political direction. Even the slightest suspicion is enough to be branded a separatist and accused of violating the nation’s interests. This leads to arrests, or, when there’s no legal basis for such actions, less orthodox methods are employed, such as punitive raids by various paramilitary groups made up of young men indoctrinated into artificial nationalism.
The news is full of these cases, which, despite efforts to the contrary, the media doesn’t always manage to hide or cover up.
Another act of war against the country’s own population is the imposition of forced Ukrainization in schools, as well as in daily life. Shop signs (even in cities with a majority Russian-speaking population) must be translated into Ukrainian, and Russian-speaking shopkeepers are required to speak the national language — if they don’t want to face the aforementioned raids by young men who arrive to explain the “proper” way to address customers. The internet is filled with videos documenting such incidents.
The repression of the population by the government also manifests in the religious sphere, targeting the Orthodox Church under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, which is the only church with canonical status recognized by the entire Eastern Orthodox communion. It is worth remembering that the Russian Church originated in Kiev in 988 with the baptism of Prince Vladimir and the Conversion of Kyivan Rus to Christianity.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, following the Moscow Patriarchate's refusal to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Metropolia, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate was established by the will of Filaret. To this day, it remains unrecognized by the Orthodox communion. The Kiev Patriarchate developed mainly in the western part of the country, while the Moscow Patriarchate continued to dominate the rest of Ukraine, remaining the primary reference point for the Orthodox world in terms of the number of churches, monasteries, and the number of believers.
With the Ukrainian Maidan revolution, things changed. In a short period, there was an alarming number of attacks on representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate and assaults on places of worship. This is not to mention the dozens of sacred sites deliberately targeted and bombed during the war in Donbass by Ukrainian military forces.
A few days ago, the Ukrainian website "Mirotvorets," a database listing individuals considered enemies of Ukraine, including sensitive information such as home addresses and phone numbers, published a call to not hesitate to open fire on representatives of the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate if necessary.
According to Ukrainian "patriots," "every Ukrainian soldier must remember that Russian or pro-Russian priests are combat units of the Russian aggressor, and they represent nothing sacred. Under their robes, a rifle could be concealed."
"Mirotvorets" — whose name translates as "peacemaker," but which clearly has nothing to do with that concept — is not an official website. However, it is indirectly supported by prominent figures in the Kiev government, and history has shown that it is not a tool to be underestimated. One only needs to recall the case of journalist Oles Buzina, who was murdered near his home in March 2015, two days after his address was published on "Mirotvorets."
In the days following the statement published on this site, as reported by the RIA Novosti agency, in Kiev "on the night of March 14, unknown individuals set fire to a structure belonging to the Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate." On March 10, according to the Kiev Metropolia (Moscow Patriarchate), unknown persons set fire to a wooden chapel. These are not solitary instances. On February 3, the Church of Saint Vladimir in Lviv was set ablaze. The fire destroyed 100 square meters of the roof, the flooring, and the church’s archives. On January 10, in the Odessa region, a group of individuals linked to nationalist formations staged an anti-religious demonstration in front of the Church of the Holy Protection, attacking and looting it.
Two days earlier, militants of the radical group C14 had blockaded the entrance to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, one of the oldest and most significant monasteries in Orthodox culture. They accused the priests of being agents of the FSB (Russian Federal Security Service) and claimed that "the sacred Ukrainian site has been occupied by the enemy."
Following the 2014 revolution, radical formations in Ukraine grew larger, effectively becoming the armed wing of the Ukrainian authorities for carrying out such "dirty work." These are blatantly illegal actions that could not, for example, be conducted by the police. Attacks are ongoing, and in most cases, the perpetrators are never identified, despite extremist groups often claiming responsibility.
In the past three years, over 50 churches of the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine have come under the jurisdiction of the Kiev Patriarchate. This has occurred due to pressure and threats, and as priests often report, law enforcement authorities prefer not to intervene.
Religion or politics?
Vadim Novinsky, a deputy from the "Opposition Bloc" party, stated in an interview with the television channel 112 Ukraine that "the so-called Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate is a political organization with a religious name — a kind of department of the presidential administration."
In May 2017, the Ukrainian government attempted to take full control of all matters related to religion through Bill No. 4511, concerning "the special status of religious organizations whose governing centers are located in states recognized as aggressors." The adoption of this law would have forced the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to sign an agreement with the Kiev government, binding the appointment of ecclesiastical leaders at both the national and regional levels to government approval. Additionally, the approval of preachers could only occur with the consent of the Ministry of Culture. In short, this was a form of blackmail. If these requirements were violated, the Kiev government would have had the authority to ban the religious institution from the country. After much criticism and fears of large-scale protests, the bill was shelved.
The Ukrainian government would benefit from monopolizing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate as an institution through which to channel its political agenda to the faithful via the voice of Patriarch Filaret. Perhaps not everyone is familiar with this figure, and to understand the context, it is worth recalling how the head of the Kiev Patriarchate commented on the ongoing conflict, stating that "the war in southeastern Ukraine is divine punishment inflicted on the godless people of Donbass."
"Do not think that the people of Donbass bear no guilt in this context of suffering. They are guilty! And they will atone for their guilt for a long time with suffering and blood," said Filaret. And what, according to him, is their guilt? "They committed the sin of participating in the referendum."
Contemporary Ukraine has all the characteristics of a totalitarian regime that seeks to control the social, private, and spiritual spheres of its citizens, despite its Western partners — our institutional representatives — continuing to speak of democratic progress in the country.
The report of the Russian Foreign Ministry "On the illegal actions of the Kiev regime against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), its clergy and parishioners", 07/25/2023
