Are Christians Persecuted by Kyiv?
Imagine a representative of the Canine Defense League arguing that, by excluding foxes from the chicken coop, the reynards are being denied their God-given right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
In response, an attorney for the Chicken Coop Foundation argues that foxes are not even barnyard animals, that they have a right to wander the forest as much as they want, but they have no business in the chicken coop given that they are outspoken advocates for and practitioners of eating coop dwellers.
Who has the stronger argument?
Now imagine a group of Communist KGB agents in priest cassocks persecuting Christians in Ukraine for more than half a century, sending many true believers to the Gulags or their death under the state-run banner of the Moscow patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. And the fall of the Soviet Union does not stop them because the same people remain in power, including a KGB operative called Kirill who will become Patriarch of the Russian church and a KGB Colonel named Putin who’ll become permanent President of Russia, both men joined at the hip.
In the years that follow, Kirill interferes with the Ukrainian elections hoping to boost Moscow’s control, blesses the Russian weapons of war and soldiers killing Ukrainians on Ukrainian land, and presents the 2022 invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine as a holy war in which Putin leads a God-blessed army against church heretics and Nazis.
The consequences were predictable.
One hundred years of persecution from Moscow had taken its toll, beginning with the Soviet closure of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in 1936 and continuing through the independence of Ukraine in 1991. Moscow’s war on Ukraine which began in 2014 now forced the question. In the end, by 2019, more than 153 religious communities and monasteries announced their departure from the Kirill-run church to return to a historic Moscow-free Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), once again under Constantinople. Adding further permanence to the transition, the governing synod in Constantinople withdrew their 332-years-old qualified acceptance of Moscow’s canonical jurisdiction within Ukraine.
As of January 2023, the once again liberated Orthodox Church of Ukraine had over 8,000 parishes in total, with more than 40% of the population of Ukraine identifying with this body of believers. Only 4% remain loyal to the Moscow branch. That number is dwindling.
The consequences are significant for Moscow - loss of wealth, loss of access to Ukrainian property, loss of propaganda pulpits, loss of listening posts, loss of control over Ukraine.
Kirill and Putin have responded with a simple strategy: First, persecute those Christians in the OCU for rejecting the supremacy of Moscow. Initiate a campaign of disinformation. Label them heretics and false Christians. Second, play upon the ignorance and prejudice of people in the West by claiming to be victims of religious persecution themselves when others question their right to use ancient religious buildings in Kyiv as listening posts to advance their war on Ukraine.
Foxes like to stay in the henhouse and old communists don’t easily surrender their wealth.
Grasp the above and one can begin to understand why Ukrainians want Moscow’s listening posts shut down. It has nothing to do with freedom of religion and everything to do with giving aid and comfort to the enemy during wartime.
By way of analogy, remember that Israel is home to both synagogues and mosques. But after October 7, there is little possibility the Jewish state will allow imams within Israel to encourage Muslims to aid Hamas. In point of fact, Israeli police have shut down Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s old city, preventing Muslim worshippers from entering. The decision had nothing to do with religious persecution and everything to do with security and safety during time of war.
One can also understand why the only people falling for Moscow’s claims of religious persecution are the completely uninformed and those American news commentators and political candidates predisposed to dislike Ukraine who get their talking points from the Kremlin.
DW Phillips is a filmmaker, author and constitutional attorney whose great grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Lviv. He is presently directing a documentary series in Ukraine. He recently filmed and interviewed participants in the Moscow/Kyiv conflict at the Lavra.
