Fifth, even if we agree with the Ukrainian state that the UOC is institutionally subordinated to the ROC, the concept of loss of legal status as a punishment for ecclesiastical or historical links is internally contradictory. The state argues that these links with the ROC make UOC communities dangerous for national security. If UOC communities are
was serving in the Church
For example, Fr Kostiantyn Maksimov, a UOC priest, was serving in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the city of Tokmak in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Region. Tokmak has been under Russian occupation since the beginning of the renewed invasion in February 2022. In May 2023 Russian occupation forces disappeared Fr Kostiantyn, ap
and its local communities
This list is highly problematic and seems excessively burdensome for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and its local communities First, the affiliation criteria do not require the state to prove any illegal behaviour on the part of the UOC as a whole or its communities. The fact of any form of ecclesiastical or documentary connection with the Rus
Even were such evidence
Even were such evidence to exist, a total ban of an entire religious community (which in the case of the UOC has over 8,000 separate legal entities on territory under Ukrainian government control) simply for having historical or ecclesiastical links with the ROC would be a disproportionate punishment. Stripping a religious community of legal status
communities and believers
religious communities and the expression of religious ideas. Government, public and private actors already see it as a signal to attack UOC communities and believers On 24 August, Ukrainian Independence Day, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he had signed Law No. 3894-IX banning the Russian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarch