Representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) are under the strict control of special services, therefore, for contacts with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) they may face reprisals, including arrests and murders. Vakhtang Kipshidze, deputy chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church with Society and Media of the Moscow Patriarchate, told RTVI about this.
“Unfortunately, these contacts (with the UOC) are very difficult, because all cases of communication between the priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with those who live in Russia, with other believers, are very tightly controlled by the special services Ukrainians, and any attempt at direct dialogue and interaction provokes repression against the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” he said.
According to Kipshidze, representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church “have repeatedly testified to repressions, illegal seizures of churches, monasteries, illegal detentions and even sometimes murders of priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and their discrimination for fictitious reasons”.
“Therefore, we are always very respectful and very careful about any kind of contacts, because we understand that they can lead to unmotivated aggression against these priests,” explained the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Today, there are two Orthodox structures in Ukraine: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (OCU). OCU was created in December 2018, after which it received autocephalous status. At the same time, the Russian Orthodox Church does not recognize the OCU. In turn, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate, but in May 2022 the synod declared independence from the Russian Orthodox Church, condemning the military operation in Ukraine and expressing disagreement with Patriarch Kirill over that question. At the same time, the UOC did not proclaim autocephaly and also declared that it had not severed relations with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Since the end of October 2022, the SBU has carried out several searches in the churches of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate, in particular in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov called the actions of Ukrainian security forces “another link in the chain of military operations against Russian Orthodoxy.” In January, a draft law was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to ban the UOC-MP from Ukrainian territory.
Why the Moscow Patriarchate is losing its influence in the “Russian world” – read in the RTVI material.
