Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
Freedom of religion and worship is guaranteed in Ukraine by the 1996 constitution, which affirms the separation of Church and religious organisations from the State. Article 35 states: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of personal philosophy and religion. This right shall include the freedom to profess any religion or profess no religion, to freely practise religious rites and ceremonial rituals, alone or collectively, and to pursue religious activities. The exercise of this right may be restricted by law only to protect the public order, health and morality of the population, or to protect the rights and freedoms of other persons. [...] No religion shall be recognised by the State as mandatory.”[1]
The same article also states: “No one shall be exempt from his/her duties to the State or refuse to abide by laws on religious grounds. If the performance of military duty contradicts the religious beliefs of a citizen, the performance of this duty shall be replaced by alternative (non-military) service.”[2] This alternative service lasts one-and-a-half times longer than regular military service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Article 15 stipulates: “Social life in Ukraine shall be based on the principles of political, economic and ideological diversity. No ideology shall be recognised as mandatory by the State. Censorship shall be prohibited. The State shall guarantee the freedom of political activities not prohibited by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.”[3]
According to Article 21: “All people shall be free and equal in their dignity and rights. Human rights and freedoms shall be inalienable and inviolable.”[4]
Article 17 states: “The Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations shall not be used by anyone to restrict the rights and freedoms of citizens or with the intent to overthrow the constitutional order, subvert the government authorities or obstruct their activities.”[5]
The 1992 Law on Alternative (non-military) Service reaffirms: “Citizens of Ukraine have the right to alternative service if the fulfilment of military duty contradicts their religious beliefs and these citizens belong to religious organisations operating in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine, whose doctrine does not allow the use of weapons”.[6]
However, in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, a state of martial law and general mobilisation were introduced by presidential decree. In this regard, Article 64 of the Constitution affirms: “Constitutional human and civil rights and freedoms shall not be restricted except in cases stipulated by the Constitution of Ukraine. Under the conditions of martial law or a state of emergency, specific restrictions on rights and freedoms may be established with the indication of the period of effect for such restrictions.”[7]
During the so-called “special period” (the war with Russia), members of the clergy are not exempt from military mobilisation, and conscientious objectors are required to perform military reserve service.[8] Since the war with Russia broke out and martial law was imposed, men of military age have not been permitted to leave the country.[9]
According to Human Rights Without Frontiers, during the early months of the war, most conscientious objectors were able to perform alternative service. However, in the final months of 2024, “the number of criminal proceedings against religious conscientious objectors has suddenly dramatically increased, mainly affecting the members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ community”. Convictions result in severe punishment: imprisonment for a term of three years. As of late October 2024, around 300 conscientious objectors — almost 95 percent Jehovah’s Witnesses — were under investigation.[10]
This follows a decision by the Supreme Court of Ukraine concerning the case of Adventist Dmytro Zelinsky. On 13 June 2024, the Court confirmed the suspension of the right to conscientious objection and to an alternative civilian service during the war with Russia: “Religious beliefs cannot be the basis for a citizen of Ukraine, recognised as fit for military service, to evade mobilisation and fulfil his constitutional duty to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the State from military aggression by a foreign country”.[11]
Dmytro Zelinsky appealed to the Constitutional Court to determine whether Part I of Article 1 of the Law on Alternative (non-military) Service is compatible with Part IV of Article 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine. On 24 September 2024, proceedings were opened following the applicant’s complaint.[12]
The main legal framework governing religious freedom and the functioning of Churches and religious organisations in Ukraine is the 1991 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations.[13] This law does not require religious communities to register as legal entities. Since its inception, this piece of legislation has undergone numerous amendments. The most significant followed the adoption of the Law on the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activity of Religious Organisations. The law was passed by the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) on 20 August 2024 and entered into force on 23 September 2024.[14] This law refers to “the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the support of this aggression by the Russian Orthodox Church” and notes: “Numerous illegal actions of the Russian Orthodox Church and its subordinate religious organisations on the territory of Ukraine pose a threat to national and public security, rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens.”[15]
Article 2(1) prohibits “the activities of foreign religious organisations […] located in a state that is recognised as having committed or is committing armed aggression against Ukraine and/or temporarily occupying part of the territory of Ukraine.”
Article 3 states that, since “the Russian Orthodox Church is an ideological continuation of the regime of the aggressor State, an accomplice in war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on behalf of the Russian Federation and the ideology of the ‘Russian world’, the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine are prohibited.” Along with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), the Law — Article 3(2) — bans “the activities of religious organisations affiliated with a foreign religious organisation whose activities are prohibited in Ukraine.”[16] The Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) is not directly named in the document, but it is considered to be the main target of the law.
For centuries, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate was the only officially recognised Orthodox Church in Ukraine. In 1990, the ROC granted it some autonomy, and in 2019 the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople recognised an autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). The law came into effect 30 days after its publication, except for one clause granting parishes and monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church nine months to sever ties with Moscow. A yet open question is when a court will decide on a national ban against the Moscow-linked Church, now formally separate from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.[17]
Regarding antisemitism, a law adopted by Ukraine’s Parliament on 22 September 2021 defines the concept of anti-Semitism, prohibits Judeophobia and its manifestations, and establishes penalties for violations of the legislation.[18]
In the field of education, Article 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine states: “The Church and religious organisations in Ukraine shall be separated from the State, and the school shall be separated from the Church.”[19]
According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the country’s population was 41.1 million people in January 2021, before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, including the territories occupied by Russia.[20] As of 2024, the United Nations Population Fund estimates the number at 37.9 million, attributing the decline to the refugee crisis and further loss of territory caused by the ongoing war.[21]
Research by the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Centre for Economic and Political Studies, commonly known as the Razumkov Centre after its founder, Olexander Razumkov, found a fairly high level of religiosity in Ukrainian society. The number of Ukrainians who identify as believers increased from 58 percent in 2000 to 70.5 percent in 2023, following the outbreak of war.[22]
The four major Churches in Ukraine — none of which are a State Church — are the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate, UOC-MP), a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC); the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU); the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), which is predominant in the west of the country and recognises the supremacy of the Pope while following the Eastern rite; and the Roman Catholic Church.[23]
Coexistence between the UOC-MP and the OCU was disrupted by Russia’s invasion in February 2022, which was supported by the ROC leadership. Prior to this, the OCU had succeeded in gaining recognition as an independent Church by the world Orthodox hierarchy. On 6 January 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople handed over a Tomos to Metropolitan Epiphanius I of Kyiv, recognising the autocephaly of the OCU.[24]
The deepest rupture in Orthodox ecclesial relations between Moscow and Constantinople in over a thousand years[25] occurred in August 2024 with the adoption of the Law on Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activity of Religious Organisations by the Ukrainian Parliament.[26] This law radically altered the position of the UOC-MP in the country, even though its primate, Metropolitan Onufriy (Berezovsky), has repeatedly condemned Russia’s war and took steps in May 2022 to ensure his Church’s independence and full autonomy from Moscow.[27]
These steps were deemed insufficient by the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (SSUEPFC), which stated in January 2023 that the “status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as a structural subdivision of the Russian Orthodox Church [...] remains unchanged”.[28]
Incidents and developments
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the new Ukrainian Law on Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activity of Religious Organisations — de facto outlawing religious organisations with ties to the Russian Orthodox Church —is overly broad and could have far-reaching consequences for Ukrainians’ right to religious freedom. Its ban on UOC-MP congregations risks violating the rights of millions of UOC members. The consequences “range from restrictions on ownership and operation of religious properties to difficulties in accessing places of worship and heightened risk of security service surveillance and prosecution.”[29]
HRW underlines that “any prosecution or penalty not based on specific, unlawful actions but solely on the adherence to a peaceful practice of faith, constitutes religious discrimination and is prohibited by international human rights law.” [30] The law’s implementation could drive the approximately 10,000 Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP) congregations across Ukraine underground, forcing them to practise their religion in secrecy. Charges, including treason, have been made against dozens of UOC-MP clerics. At least one cleric was sent to Russia as part of a prisoner swap.[31]
Since the start of the invasion, Ukraine’s security service launched criminal proceedings against at least a hundred clergymen — most affiliated with the UOC-MP — for “collaborationism,” treason, and “aiding the aggressor State.”[32] Nonetheless, as several religious scholars argue, the law is not banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church outright.[33] In a written response to Human Rights Watch, the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience said that the law’s main objective is “to prevent the network of religious organizations officially registered in Ukraine from being used against Ukraine.” The SSUEPFC goes on to say that Ukraine “does not demand that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church betray the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, change liturgical practices or language, switch to a different liturgical calendar, or join another church jurisdiction. The only requirement that the Law insists on is withdrawing from the Russian Orthodox Church, which is involved in the war against Ukraine”.[34]
In Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, had already condemned the law when it was first introduced in the Verkhovna Rada, stating that “it is directed against the largest religious community in Ukraine.”[35]
The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Sergeyevich Peskov too condemned the law when it was adopted, describing it as “a blatant attack on freedom of religion, on the Orthodox Church as a whole, [and] an attack on Christianity.”[36]
According to an April 2024 poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), 63 percent of Ukrainians favour outlawing the Russian-aligned branch of the Church: for the signatories, it is not a question of religious freedom but the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s association with the Russian government.[37]
On 25 August 2024, Pope Francis condemned the ban on religious organisations with ties to the Russian Orthodox Church from operating in Ukraine: “Please, let no Christian Church be abolished directly or indirectly. Churches are not to be touched!”[38]
Regarding local Ukrainian Orthodox communities, at the end of 2024 OCU Primate Metropolitan Epifaniy accused UOC-MP Primate Metropolitan Onufriy of turning down any request for a dialogue over the years. Nevertheless, according to Metropolitan Epifaniy, “dialogue continues at the level of the laity and the priests. Its fruit is the ongoing process of communities leaving the Russian church’s jurisdiction and joining the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. More than 2,000 communities have already undergone this process.”[39]
War and religious freedom violations in Russian-occupied territories
In areas under Russian occupation, Ukraine’s constitution and its Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations no longer apply.[40]
Following the Russian annexation of Crimea, the local branches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) were defined as “agents of foreign influence” and accused of being “religious organisations created for a nationalistic purpose.” The impact on all religious groups across the peninsula has been considerable. Prior to the Russian occupation, approximately 50 religious organisations operated in Crimea. By 2019, their number had dropped to nine.[41]
After the full-scale invasion started on 24 February 2022, Russian occupation authorities began to implement the laws of the Russian Federation in the regions they had only partially occupied. On 5 October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved “treaties” endorsing the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts (provinces), following referendums described as illegitimate by most observers.[42]
According to an April 2023 report on religious repression in occupied Ukraine by the Washington DC-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian occupation authorities are allegedly conducting a campaign of systematic religious persecution. This includes closing, nationalising or forcefully converting places of worship; killing or detaining members of the clergy and religious leaders; threatening them with lengthy prison sentences, torture and even death; and forcing many of them into exile. The ISW states: “cases of religious repression are not likely isolated incidents but rather part of a deliberate campaign to systematically eradicate ‘undesirable’ religious organizations in Ukraine and promote the Moscow Patriarchate.”[43] As religious groups must now apply for an official registration, effectively pledging obedience to the Russian government, the repression appears to be part of Moscow’s efforts to “russify” areas under its control.[44]
The Institute for the Study of War further alleges that, while Russian occupation authorities are intensifying their crackdown against members of all religious groups suspected of being pro-Ukraine, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) has been singled out. The ISW document states that OCU priests are pressured to join the new dioceses that the Moscow Patriarchate has established in the occupied territories and, at the time of reporting, 34 percent of all cases of persecution were aimed at OCU members. According to Viktor Yelenskyi, head of the State Agency of Ukraine for Ethno-Politics and Freedom of Conscience (SAUEPFC), OCU parishes in Crimea have effectively ceased to exist, with their priests forced to leave the occupied peninsula.[45]
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) has faced harsh repression as well, having been completely banned in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia Oblast where its property has been confiscated. The occupation authorities justified their action by claiming that UGCC followers had participated in anti-Russian riots, “distributed literature with appeals to violate the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation” and “participated in extremist activities.”[46]
In an interview in October 2024 with the Italian daily Avvenire, Greek Catholic Bishop Maksym Ryabukha of the Donetsk Exarchate said that more than half of the Church’s parishes in the occupied regions have been lost: “Those who openly call themselves Catholics disappear: some are shot, others are imprisoned. There is no right to freely profess the faith.”[47]
Another particularly vulnerable group to occupation authorities and Russian laws is the Tatars, indigenous Turkic Muslims of Crimea. Under Russian law (but not Ukrainian law), the Muslim religious-political group Hizb ut-Tahrir has been considered a terrorist Islamic organisation since 2003. The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre estimates that 117 Muslims have been persecuted in Crimea since 2014 for allegedly belonging to the Hizb ut-Tahrir organisation,[48] while the Mejlis (Parliament) of the Crimean Tatar people has been banned, and its members are subjected to pressure, arrests and political trials.
Russian-occupied territories report widespread bans of other minority religious groups, including Evangelical Christians, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Greek Catholic communities, and Jehovah’s Witnesses — the latter was designated as an extremist group by Russia’s Supreme Court in 2017. In October 2024, the rising religious persecution against Jehovah’s Witnesses was exemplified by the Russian-controlled Crimea High Court’s decision to convert a suspended sentence against two Jehovah’s Witnesses — Yury Herashchenko and Serhiy Parfenovych — into a six-year prison term.[49]
According to Viktor Yelenskyi, Evangelicals and Mormons have been completely banned in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts are reportedly treated as American spies.[50]
Sources cited in the 2023 US State Department Report on International Religious Freedom note the difficulty of fully accounting for Russia’s extensive violations of religious rights due to a heavy media censorship, abuses against human rights activists, and a ban on international observers.[51]
On 17 December 2024, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an updated version of a resolution titled Situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, in which it reiterated its condemnation of Russia’s “war of aggression against Ukraine.”[52] The resolution condemns Russia for its actions against Crimean Tatars, pro-Ukrainian activists, journalists, religious minorities, as well as the deportation and illegal adoption of Ukrainian children.[53]
In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in December 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russian forces for the killing of 50 priests and the destruction of 700 church buildings.[54]
One of the priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church affected is the Father Feognost (Timofei Pushkov), detained in Russian-occupied Luhansk Region. He was convicted of “large scale” drug trading after posting a video on YouTube in 2022 discussing how his views on patriotism, based on Christian principles, differed from those of three pro-war Russian Orthodox Church priests. After more than three months in pre-trial detention, Father Feognost was given a four-year suspended sentence in September 2024.[55]
On 15 February 2024, the body of Father Stepan Podolchak of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was found in the village of Kalanchak, in the Russian-occupied part of Kherson Region. He had been abducted by unknown men from the Russian occupation forces two days earlier.[56]
Intense diplomatic efforts, including by Pope Francis, made possible the release of Father Ivan Levytsky and Father Bohdan Geleta of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists) from Russian captivity through a prisoner swap on 28 June 2024. The two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests had been arrested in occupied Berdyansk on 16 November 2022; they had decided to stay with their people in the temporarily occupied territories, serving both the Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic communities.[57]
Damage to Church property nationwide
The Russian invasion and occupation of large swathes of Ukraine have led to hundreds of churches being damaged or destroyed, while entire parishes of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine have disappeared completely from the occupied regions.[58]
Citing the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications, the Ukrinform news agency reported that as of 25 October 2024, a total of 2,109 cultural infrastructure facilities in Ukraine had been damaged or destroyed.[59]
A more detailed but earlier estimate is found in a report released by Ukraine’s Institute for Religious Freedom (IRF) in March 2024. According to IRF data, during the first 21 months of the full-scale invasion, Russian troops damaged or wholly destroyed at least 630 religious facilities. The report also documents numerous cases of seizure of places of worship by the Russian military, which used them as military bases or as cover for their firing positions.[60]
As part of the “Religion on Fire” project, the Workshop for Academic Study of Religion (WASR) posted statistics online on the destruction of church buildings in Ukraine caused by the war. According to its findings, a total of 512 churches were damaged and 46 completely destroyed. Most belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (310), followed by Protestant churches (171), the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (53), Greek and Roman Catholic churches (16), Jewish synagogues (15), and Muslim mosques (7).[61]
Among the most notable religious buildings targeted was the Sviatohirsk Lavra, a major Orthodox monastery in Donetsk Oblast belonging to UOC-MP, repeatedly attacked by Russian forces in the spring of 2022 while clergy and locals were taking shelter inside. St Catherine’s Cathedral in Kherson was attacked in August 2023, and Odesa’s Transfiguration Cathedral, also belonging to UOC-MP, was partially destroyed in July 2023. In 2022, during the siege of Mariupol, Moscow’s troops bombed the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent Mosque. A local synagogue was destroyed as well.[62]
The fate of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra has been further cause of controversy between Kyiv and Moscow. While the entire complex belongs to the Government of Ukraine, the UOC-MP used to rent its churches after the collapse of the USSR. Following accusations that the UOC-MP Church’s top officials collaborated with the Russian invaders, in the autumn of 2022, Ukrainian authorities “effectively banished” UOC-MP clergy from the gold-domed monastery complex. Metropolitan Clement, spokesman for the UOC-MP stated: “Our monks lived here from ancient times. Access is closed now to clergymen and to many believers who could come to pray here even in Soviet times”.[63] At the beginning of 2023, a special commission returned the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra churches to State control.[64]
Since 2023, a Ukrainian digital platform, Temple under fire, has been available online to document, through photos and videos, the destruction and damage to religious buildings of various denominations.[65]
War and faith
The February 2022 invasion is an extension of the 2014 invasion of Crimea. At that time, the Russian president justified the invasion by invoking Saint Vladimir, the Prince of Kyiv, declaring that the prince’s 988 conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy “predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilisation and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.”[66]
The speech crystallised an ideological concept hitherto debated among intellectuals regarding a Russian worldview, the Russkij Mir—a wider “Russian world” that framed not only a religious vision but also a geographic region of special interest. The narrative has been supported by the Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate[67] during the period under review.
In March 2024, Moscow Patriarch Kirill oversaw a council that declared Russia’s invasion a “holy war” in defence of the region’s “single spiritual space.” The council claimed that Russia is protecting the world from “globalism and the victory of the West that has fallen into Satanism.”[68] At the end of October of the same year, the Russian Holy Synod decided to retire Metropolitan Hilarion of Donetsk and Mariupol. In a letter to the Moscow Patriarchate, 31 bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP) condemned the decision removing the respected Ukrainian bishop in favour of a bishop from the Russian Orthodox Church.[69] Additionally, the Russian Orthodox Church announced a fivefold increase in the number of military chaplains deployed with Russian forces in Ukraine bringing the total to 1,500 clergy members embedded within military units, up from approximately 300 priests previously serving alongside Russian troops.[70]
In July 2023, a Ukrainian law moved the celebration of Christmas to 25 December, changing the date from the traditional Orthodox Church observance of 7 January. The law allows Ukrainians to “abandon the Russian heritage of imposing Christmas celebrations on 7 January.”[71]
On 15 December 2023, Ukraine's Interior Ministry placed Patriarch Kirill on a wanted list after the country’s security services accused the religious leader of encouraging the conflict.[72] During the period under review, diplomatic pressures from different sides have led to limited contacts between the warring parties, with isolated successes, mostly in the exchange of prisoners. During his pontificate, Pope Francis made numerous public and private appeals for an end to the war in Ukraine and led multiple aid initiatives and diplomatic efforts for peace. In his Urbi et Orbi message on Christmas Day 2024, the pontiff called for prayers “to silence the sound of arms and overcome divisions” in war-torn Ukraine, urging the parties “to open the door to negotiation and to gestures of dialogue and encounter in order to achieve a just and lasting peace.”[73]
In July 2024, Vatican Secretary of State, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, paid a six-day visit to Ukraine during which he met Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki, visited the Greek Catholic cathedral of Kyiv, and met Greek Ukrainian Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk. While continuing to pray for peace and to assist in negotiations, the Vatican and Pope Francis had been engaging various world leaders at the humanitarian level with the aid of Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. The cardinal was Pope Francis’s personal peace envoy to Ukraine. In this capacity, Cardinal Zuppi visited Kyiv, Moscow, Washington, and Beijing, meeting with top government and religious officials.[74]
Most of the Vatican’s efforts thus far have focused on humanitarian aid, assisting in the return of Ukrainian children forcibly deported to Russia, and negotiating prisoner swaps.[75]
During a meeting at the Vatican on 11 October 2024, President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Pope Francis for help in securing the release of Ukrainians held captive by Russia. A Vatican statement said that the Ukrainian leader later met with the Vatican’s chief diplomat and held discussions “dedicated to the state of the war [...] as well as the ways in which it could be brought to an end.”[76] On 13 December 2024, OCU Primate, Metropolitan Epifaniy, met with Pope Francis in Rome. A few days later, media reports about Pope Francis potentially visiting Ukraine raised hopes that the former Holy Father might have accepted an invitation to visit the war-torn country in 2025.[77]
Religious freedom in the Ukrainian-controlled territories
The conflict and the impact on the Orthodox Churches and faithful have also raised questions about religious freedom in Ukrainian-controlled territories. Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate has faced increasing scrutiny for its perceived ties to the Russian state. Ukrainian authorities, increasingly suspicious of anyone with links to the Russian Orthodox Church, have arrested clergymen on charges of spying for Moscow and launched criminal proceedings against priests accused of spreading pro-Russian propaganda. Many convicted of high treason, collaborating with the enemy, and aiding the aggressor state, have been sentenced to long jail terms.[78]
On the ground, suspicion and anger directed at the UOC-MP and Orthodox clergy continues to grow. In early 2023, public outrage increased after the SBU (Ukraine's intelligence service), released a wiretap recording of Metropolitan Pavel Lebed, Abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, Ukraine’s most revered Orthodox site, allegedly praising Russia's invasion.[79]
On 1 April 2023, Metropolitan Pavel was put under house arrest, with notice served under Part 1 of Art. 161 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine “(violation of equality of citizens based on their race, nationality, region, religious beliefs) and Part 1 of Art. 436-2 (justification, denial of Russian armed aggression against Ukraine, glorification of its participants)”.[80] Metropolitan Pavel denied the allegations stating at the courthouse: “I have never been on the side of aggression, this is my land”.[81]
Other cases include UOC priest Andriy Pavlenko, who in December 2023 was sentenced to 12 years for passing information to the Russians about Ukrainian battlefield positions in the Donbas.[82] A week later, he was sent to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange. On 23 June 2024, the Moscow Patriarchate announced the release from house arrest and prisoner exchange of another senior priest sentenced in Ukraine in relation to the war. Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin and Bratslav had been accused of distributing pro-Russian leaflets to his congregation and posting statements on his diocese’s website declaring the primacy of the UOC-MP over the OCU and supporting the Russian invasion. He was sentenced on 8 August 2023 by a court in Vinnytsia to five years in prison.[83]
Supporters of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) have also been involved in violent confrontations. One occurred in October 2024 in Cherkasy, where UOC Metropolitan Feodosiy (Snegiryov), under house arrest on charges of collaborating with the Russian invaders in 2022, was among the people injured when masked men forcibly entered St Michael’s Cathedral during an evening service, destroying furnishings and documents.[84] While the UOC accused the Ukrainian police of failing to intervene, the OCU claimed that the clashes near the church in Cherkasy were a planned provocation aimed at discrediting Ukraine and creating an incident for Russian propaganda.[85]
The war launched by Russia has had an impact on the life and faith of all religious communities living in Ukraine. Before the war, Ukraine was home to a sizeable Jewish population, which ranged between 45,000 and 140,000 Jews (depending on the criteria used for identification). After Russia’s incursion, an estimated 25,000 fled and thousands of others were internally displaced. Some 15,000 Jews and their kin emigrated to Israel, where they were later caught up in another war.[86]
While a divide opened between Russian and Ukrainian Jews[87], new forms of solidarity developed within Jewish groups in Ukraine and among Jewish refugee groups abroad. In Odessa, one of the hubs of Jewish life on the coast of the Black Sea, some Jewish religious leaders took entire communities out of the country, while others relocated temporarily. Jews in need of support sought out these communities and took up religious practice to both help themselves and support others.[88]
The conflict has also transformed the Ukrainian Muslim community. For years, small groups of Muslims had been leaving Russia for Ukraine, driven by wars in the North Caucasus and attracted by less restrictive laws against non-mainstream Islamic groups that Russia had banned, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir. Over time, however, Ukrainian authorities became increasingly concerned about Russian-origin Muslims, with security forces monitoring areas where migrants live and congregate.[89] When the war with Russia began in 2014, however, the government’s stance towards Muslims has steadily improved because of the unequivocally pro-Ukrainian position taken by nearly all Muslim communities in Ukraine against the Russian invasion.[90]
In 2023, and again in 2024, President Volodymyr Zelensky initiated a new tradition in Ukraine, honouring Muslim soldiers and taking part, along with the leaders of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis (Parliament), in the Iftar — the evening meal that breaks the fast Muslims perform during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.[91]
Prospects for freedom of religion
Since independence in the 1990s, Ukraine has encouraged a tradition of religious freedom. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish while defence Minister Rustem Umerov is Muslim. Religious scholars suggest “a hundred different religions are practiced freely and without interference within the country”.[92] After more than three years of full-scale war, however, religious freedom is increasingly challenged in Ukraine, especially in the Russian-occupied territories. Despite repeated peace negotiations, talks remain uncertain, and a realistic solution is not yet in sight. For faithful and religious communities in the occupied territories, the most likely prospect in the near future is to remain under an increasingly entrenched Russian control, with the occupation authorities cementing the affiliation of the “new regions” to the Russian Federation.
War is testing faithful in the rest of Ukraine as well, because of tensions between the two main Orthodox Churches. A law, which President Volodymyr Zelensky described as defending Ukraine’s “spiritual sovereignty”[93] would ban congregations connected to the Russian Orthodox Church. The risk of discrimination is therefore high. For Ukrainian authorities, balancing security concerns with a respect for pluralism and the fundamental right to religious freedom is not, and will not, be easy. Prospects for freedom of religion remain negative, although they vary depending on the regions of the divided country.
Ukraine