MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th March, 2023) Ukraine is "the territory of the greatest religious freedom" in the region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday amid Kiev's oppression of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the decision to evict the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
"Today, a step has also been taken to strengthen the spiritual independence of our state, to protect our society from the old and cynical Moscow manipulation of religion. Ukraine is the territory of the greatest religious freedom in our part of Europe. It has been so since 1991. It will always be so," Zelenskyy said on Telegram.
On March 10, the National Kiev-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Preserve in Ukraine ordered the monks based in the monastery to leave it by March 29 after an interdepartmental Ukrainian commission accused the UOC of violating the terms of an agreement on the use of state property. Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said the monks could stay in the Lavra if they joined the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a decision that might be "stimulated through the joint work of specialists and law enforcement officers." At the same time, supporters of the OCU captured the last church of the UOC in Ivano-Frankivsk using tear gas.
The Russian Orthodox Church says the UOC is a "self-governing church with the rights of broad autonomy" within the Moscow Patriarchate. However, in the wake of the military operation that Russia launched in Ukraine a year ago, the UOC said that it was independent from the Moscow Patriarchate and did not support the conflict. In January, the Ukrainian government submitted a bill to parliament that seeks to ban the UOC in Ukraine if its connection with Russia is proven.
