The well-known American journalist Patrick Henningsen has published an investigation into the oppression of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The full text is below:
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris unexpectedly revealed how permissiveness and disregard for the religious rights of believers have become a prominent feature of modern Western society. The parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, part of which included a man dressed as a woman, a woman with a beard, and a nude man painted blue, received many appreciative comments from viewers and commentators, with virtually fewer voices from those who called what they saw “a collapse of Christian culture” and “an attempt at the civilizational suicide of Europe.” It was only after the outrage of many prominent politicians and opinion leaders – Ilon Musk, for example, called the ceremony “a display of blatant disrespect for Christians” and added that “Christianity has become toothless” – that the organizers admitted their decision was wrong and even cut this moment from the official version of the opening.
In a broader sense, however, the scandal surrounding the parody of the Last Supper shows that the collective West is now inclined to neglect its cultural and spiritual heritage in favor of political interests. And while in many Western countries the issues of religious freedom have long been resolved and do not cause any friction in society, for other countries of the world, and further we will talk about Ukraine, the softness of the Western world can lead to catastrophic consequences.
So what is happening in Ukraine today? Ukraine is preparing to take the final step to actually ban the largest canonical Orthodox Church, the UOC (Ukrainian Orthodox Church). The relevant bill was passed in the first reading back in October 2023, but so far the Verkhovna Rada has been postponing its adoption as a whole, which looked completely atypical for a parliament fully obedient and controlled by Zelensky. According to sources familiar with the situation in Ukraine, the delay in banning the UOC was caused by only one reason – Zelensky’s reluctance to take this step before receiving the multi-billion dollar aid from the U.S., as some congressmen from the Republican Party could block its allocation precisely because of their principled position on religious freedoms.
After Congress allocated $60.8 billion dollars to Ukraine, it is quite obvious that the Ukrainian government’s intentions regarding the UOC may be realized in the near future. Zelensky will be in a hurry, especially considering that if Donald Trump wins, his administration will have at least two influential politicians who have previously voiced harsh criticism of the persecution of the UOC – Ohio Senator and possible U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and one of the most popular American journalists and anchors, Tucker Carlson.
However, first things first. In recent months alone, the Ukrainian media have cited numerous examples of Zelensky’s careful preparations not only to actually ban the UOC, but also to expropriate its property as soon as possible, seize church land, and use repression against its defenders. In particular, on the night of May 16-17, one of the churches of the UOC – the Tithe Monastery of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – was physically demolished in Kyiv. “The temple, which was consecrated by His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr and His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphrius, no longer exists…” – the clergymen commented with pain on what was happening.
New criminal proceedings were registered against monks of the Kyiv Pechersk and Pochaev Lavra, searches and arrests were conducted among employees of the Union of Orthodox Journalists, who published truthful information about repressions against the UOC. The municipal authorities of Kyiv, the Kyiv City Council, decided to terminate lease agreements and expropriate the land plots on which the facilities of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra were built. Together with the SBU, a plan was developed to seize the temple complexes of two Kyiv monasteries – St. Sergius of Radonezh Monastery and Holy Trinity Ioninsky Monastery (the media indicate that after a closed-door meeting, the seizures were postponed until the allocation of US financial aid). Finally, the SBU in conjunction with the Office of the President of Ukraine developed a plan to discredit the UOC in the Ukrainian media.
The government’s persecution of Ukraine’s most popular denomination is taking place against a background of virtually complete absence of criticism from the United States and the European Union. And while in the United States, through the efforts of concerned congressmen and journalists, this issue remains on the news agenda, in Europe, which boasts of its commitment to democratic norms, the absence of such criticism can only be explained by the extreme shortsightedness of its leaders. Even the Vatican in its annual Religious Freedom Report, although it gives a negative outlook on the issue of religious freedoms in Ukraine, gives only the driest possible list of events of the last two or three years, avoiding the use of such words as “pursuit”, “persecution” or “repression”.
Against this background, lone statements by European politicians, for example, by Marcel de Graaf, a member of the European Parliament from the Dutch party Forum for Democracy, or Joachim Koos, a member of the EP representing the German party Alternative for Germany, have so far failed to cause a serious public resonance in the EU. A similar situation is observed in Great Britain, where the General Synod of the Anglican Church in its report condemned the Ukrainian bill on the probable ban of the UOC, but the country’s leadership prefers not to notice this document yet.
Against the background of all this lawlessness, an international lawyer specializing in human rights, Robert Amsterdam, the head of a well-known law firm with offices in Washington and London, arrived in Ukraine for a 10-day visit.
Amsterdam was shocked by what he saw, as he stated in an interview with the popular American TV host Tucker Carlson. Amsterdam also prepared a Monitoring Report on the violation of the rights of believers in Ukraine and submitted it to congressmen for consideration.
“The document will be in the public domain. It is quite voluminous, in it we call on the US government to recognize Ukraine as a country of particular concern for encroachment on religious freedom,” he said in an interview. “Even a US State Department commission has taken notice of this. Have you heard anywhere a statement from the United States ambassador to Ukraine about the situation with the Orthodox Church? About priests and bishops thrown in jail on false charges? About property taken away, about criminal cases?”
Tucker Carlson himself expressed his rejection of the Ukrainian government’s repression of the UOC, sharing with his multi-million audience, “It’s shameful. I stated this directly to House Speaker Mike Johnson, who says he is a Christian: ‘How can you pay for the persecution of Christians with American taxpayer dollars?”‘
“Why can’t Christian leaders, Christian legislators in the United States come forward and say that this is simply wrong, that we will not send money to build tyranny, as they have done, and persecute Christians? Is it really that difficult?” – he added.
It is surprising that American newsmakers have only now turned their attention to the tyranny against the church in Ukraine. The pressure on the UOC by the Kyiv authorities has been going on for at least the last 10 years, since the events of 2014 in Ukraine. Individual facts of oppression of clergy and believers of the UOC were recorded earlier, but the full-scale attack on canonical Orthodoxy began in 2018 and especially intensified in the last two years. It was initiated by the leadership of Ukraine (president, government, National Security and Defense Council) and is currently being implemented both at the legislative level and at the applied level – by the forces of special services and local authorities. Moreover, in 2019, in opposition to the canonical UOC, the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (PCU) was created, which in the same year Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople granted autocephalous status in violation of the norms of canon law.
On December 1, 2022, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine adopted a decision aimed at total restriction of the rights of the UOC communities. In particular, the UOC was deprived of the right to use the temples of the most ancient and largest monastery – Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, and the vicar of the Lavra – Metropolitan Pavel – was put on trial on spurious charges. “Sanctions” were imposed on UOC bishops and dozens of them were stripped of their Ukrainian citizenship.
The decision was approved by President Zelensky’s Decree of December 1, 2022, and his two other decrees – dated December 11 and 20, 2022 – approved a list of “sanctions” against 14 bishops of the UOC. “Sanctions” meant a ban on any economic activity of an individual and his actual deprivation of property on the territory of Ukraine.
And there are thousands of such facts. More recently, for example, on April 24, 2024, the Security Service of Ukraine detained the rector of the Sviatogorsk Lavra and conducted searches in the monastery itself. The security service claims that Metropolitan Arseniy allegedly conducted “subversive activities” right during the liturgy. The rector of the Lavra may face up to eight years in prison.
These actions of the Ukrainian authorities were condemned even in the United Nations. The official representative of the UN secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, said at his briefing: “We firmly believe in freedom of religion” in response to a relevant question from a journalist.
Earlier, on December 19, 2023, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk criticized the above-mentioned draft law on banning the UOC. The UN emphasized that Kyiv’s legislative initiatives to persecute the canonical UOC contradict freedom of religion and international law. In addition, Türk said that “these restrictions on the right to freedom of religion are not in line with international human rights law”.
Today it can be sadly stated that the UN is actually one of the few organizations that advocates for the UOC. The reason for this silence of the media and other international organizations was revealed by Robert Amsterdam. He claims that the Ukrainian authorities have spent $3.5 million dollars on lobbying in Washington to convince Americans that “none of what they are doing to the UOC is actually happening.” Amsterdam accused the U.S. of directing at least part of the attacks on the church, which is perceived as a threat because of its “spiritual connection to Russia.”
“Many men are in the trenches on the front lines and learn day after day how masked secret police burst in and take away their religious home. Imagine how they feel knowing that their parents, their families are losing their place of prayer,” he said.
“The attack on the UOC has caused great outrage among Ukrainians. This is a story that deserves to be heard. However, the Western press has been weakened by fears of being accused of supporting Russia if it presents an accurate picture of Ukraine. But if we do not take our work as journalists and lawyers seriously, we are in grave danger of condemning Ukraine to a perpetual cycle of democratic failure. It is time for the press to do its duty and write about Ukraine without fear or bias. Those of us who support Ukraine must become critical friends,” Amsterdam said.
The light at the end of the tunnel
July events in the political life of the United States indicate that the most dangerous period for determining the further fate of the UOC will be the time before the new US president takes office. The reason for the Ukrainian authorities’ haste may be the possibility of James David Vance, a well-known American politician who has repeatedly spoken out against the persecution of the UOC, taking the post of vice president.
“You cannot deprive the entire religious community of religious freedom because a few members disagree with you about today’s conflict,” Vance stated in April.
In addition, Vance noted that the U.S. actually “slept through” the violation of basic democratic rights in the area of religious freedom in Ukraine and called such a situation “a disgrace to the U.S.”: “Our shame for not seeing this coming. Our shame for inaction. Our shame for refusing to use the billions of dollars we send to Ukraine as leverage to secure and guarantee religious freedom.”
“When American leaders are presenting this as a war on democracy and human rights, it would be nice if the aid recipient was a little more careful about human rights, including religious freedoms,” said Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, among others. “Ukraine is doing some pretty bad things,” he adds in a commentary for The Wall Street Journal, citing news reports of investigations of priests, confiscation of church assets and arrests of priests.
And it appears that the statements of Amsterdam, Carlson and others who care are beginning to be heard by at least some in the Republican Party. Stephen Moore, a former Capitol Hill staffer and current president of the Ukraine Freedom Project, visited about 100 Republican Party congressional offices between September 2023 and January 2024. About a third “say they are concerned that Zelensky is persecuting Ukrainian Christians,” he says.
And on May 15, the largest of all international organizations dealing with religious freedom – the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom – also spoke out. Due to the lack of alternatives in terms of completeness and systematization of the material, the reports of this commission are relied upon by most NGOs around the world. The Commission sent an official letter to Ukraine expressing concern over the possible adoption of a law banning the UOC. It called the bill one that poses a threat to “freedom of religion or belief” and urged the Ukrainian authorities to refer it to the Venice Commission for consideration. The commission considered the issue after a request from Robert Amsterdam to that effect. Commenting on its decision, Amsterdam said that the initiators of the bill, if passed, might fall under US sanctions.
Thus, it is no wonder why Zelensky held off on banning the UOC until he received a multi-billion dollar aid from Congress. The money was allocated, and the Ukrainian government’s cunning seemed to go unnoticed. Except that thanks to Speaker Johnson, the bill included the following paragraph: “Within 45 days of the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committees, Congress, and the Senate a U.S. Strategy to Assist Ukraine in Combating Russian Aggression. It must describe how each specific aspect of such assistance, including defense assets and foreign assistance (read “our money”), should, at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels, help ensure that Ukraine ends this war as a democratic, independent, and sovereign country…”
In other words, Ukraine’s retreat from democratic principles, and the banning of the UOC will be the purest example of such a retreat, threatens Ukraine not just with the termination of U.S. funding, but with a reversal of all U.S. policy toward Ukraine, as well as personal responsibility to the representatives of the Ukrainian government headed by Zelensky – once a popular and democratically elected leader, and now a man rapidly losing legitimacy and turning into a dictator.
“As I said, we are preparing documents for review in the coming days. We are hoping that the State Department will wake up. I have certainly met with them. I’ve made sure that they fully believe the story,” Robert Amsterdam told Tucker Carlson at the conclusion of his interview.
