Pope Francis has condemned the Ukrainian government’s move to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) which maintains communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.

His Sunday remarks emphasized that “churches are not to be touched” and come the day after President Volodymyr Zelensky signed parliament’s newly passed bill into law identified as Bill 8371. 

Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in 2016, via AP.

“In thinking of the law recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the liberty of those who pray,” the pope said. He explained that the state must not be involved in religion.

“One does not commit evil by praying. If someone commits harm against their people, they will be guilty of that, but they cannot have done harm because they prayed,” Pope Francis said following a Sunday service.

“Let those who wish to pray in what they consider their Church be allowed to do so,” Francis added.

Throughout the war Pope Francis has consistently called for the two sides to immediately enter peace negotiations, while saying that ultimately the winners are the arms manufacturers and those who don’t care about the suffering of innocent people.

He has come under criticism, including from Kiev officials, for not just condemning one side (the Russians) like the West does.

As for Christianity in Ukriane, Orthodox clergy members have seen jail time or have been placed under house arrest, or else harassment by mobs of far-right Ukrainian nationalists, for merely calling for peace between the two countries. 

According to Ukrainian media:

Over 100 UOC-MP clergy members have come under criminal investigation since the outbreak of the full-scale war, the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) press service told the Kyiv Independent.

Almost 50 of them have been charged, and sentences have been issued in 26 cases, the SBU said.

Likely these numbers are about to be a lot higher, as the new law targeting the UOC is expected to enter force 30 days after its publication. 

The UOC is being pressured (and now forced) to join a state-sponsored church approved by Zelensky, despite the fact that the majority of the population is loyal to the UOC.

☦️ The faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church came in a procession to the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra.

The day before, Zelensky signed a law allowing the UOC to be banned. The document has already been condemned by Pope Francis. pic.twitter.com/Pv60eXSBpf

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) August 25, 2024

Even a remote or potential ‘Russian connection’ – be it related to culture, music, language, or religion – has put ordinary Ukrainians under the suspicion of the state and the military of late. This despite that some one-third of the country has always spoken Russian as their first language, especially in the east and parts of the south. All of this has also gone hand in hand with the Zelensky government’s efforts to eliminate the Russian language altogether from public life.