RCC representative on the ban of the UOC: "There is no persecution for faith in Ukraine"

A member of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO), Roman Catholic hierarch Vitaliy Kryvitskyy, has said that there are no signs of persecution for faith in Ukraine, actively refuting such accusations during his advocacy trips abroad. According to him, the problems related to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have only a political context and not a religious character.

On the air of Radio NV, Vitaliy Kryvytskyy spoke about how Ukrainian church leaders respond to accusations of religious persecution during meetings with their American and European partners. He emphasized that members of the AUCCRO are not so much engaged in diplomacy as in advocacy for the Ukrainian authorities in the religious sphere. «We repeatedly meet with this reproach, with the claim that there is persecution of religion in Ukraine. As the All-Ukrainian Council of churches and religious organizations say: we have no signs of persecution in Ukraine today precisely for faith,» the publication quotes Krivitsky. He also noted that there is no such persecution in modern Ukraine as in the USSR.

Kryvitskyy specified that only one organization — the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) — claims about persecution of religion, while other members of the AUCCRO deny these accusations. The bishop noted that the AUCCRO acts as a «watchdog» ready to respond to any real signs of persecution of the faith, while emphasizing the special sensitivity of the U.S. side to the issue of religious persecution.

«We have problems today with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, but these persecutions, if we say, these all court cases — they do not arise because of faith, that is, the faith of these people,» Krivitsky explained. He firmly stated that the ongoing actions are not related to religion, but are conditioned by «political context, which we all know very well».

The AUCCRO member also said that the Ukrainian authorities are demanding that the UOC resolve «subordination issues,» while recognizing the complexity of the process. «It is a complicated process. In fact, here I speak as a churchman — this is ecclesiology, this is canon law, it is not so easy to remove this subordination,» he added.

We will remind, the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch expressed serious concern about the potential restriction of the rights of believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to access places of worship in Ukraine. The warning is contained in the organization’s report on the human rights situation in Ukraine for 2025, which notes the possible consequences of the application of new anti-church legislation.