Ukrainian Orthodox Church Clerics and Activists Under Suspicion, Under Investigation, Sanctioned, Detained, and/or Convicted for Collaboration with Russia or for Promotion of Russian War Narratives
Journal: Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe
Year: 2025

The Context On August 20, 2024, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed Bill #8371, “On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activity of Religious Organizations,” passed by the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s legislature. As a measure of wartime national security its provisions include a ban on the staunchly pro-Putin Russian Orthodox Church. It also requires the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), historically subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate, to sever all ties with its parent c