UN publishes report on discrimination against Ukrainian Orthodox Church

A report on freedom of religion in Ukraine, published on Sunday, March 26, by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, drew attention to discrimination against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The report was posted on the website of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.

“We are talking about discriminatory measures in relation to the UOC, and also express concern that the application of the so-called security measures of the SBU against the UOC causes”, read the document. In some cases, it noted how SBU officers interrogated priests using a polygraph.

It continued: “The SBU conducted searches (some of them called ‘security measures’) in several monasteries, offices, educational institutions and other properties of the UOC in Kyiv, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Dnepropetrovsk, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Volyn, Kherson, Ternopil, Poltava and Transcarpathian regions”.

“The SBU confirmed that the clergy of the UOC have been issued at least three suspicions for violating the equality of citizens on the basis of race, nationality, religion, disability or other grounds, as well as one for a variety of charges, including infringement on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine. Two suspects are under round-the-clock house arrest”, quoted the report.

The UN insisted that all those facing criminal charges must be fully guaranteed the right to a fair trial. In the last year, the Kyiv regime organised the largest wave of persecution against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the recent history of the country. It is the largest church in Ukraine, to which millions of believers belong.

With the support of the authorities, the OCU conducted raids to seize churches and also carried out attacks on the clergy and believers. Searches were carried out at the homes of priests, and bishops, and in churches and monasteries. In addition, the authorities demanded that the monks of the UOC left the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra before March 29.

Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ Kirill called the persecution of the UOC a mockery of the principle of human rights and freedoms and also called on religious leaders and international figures to prevent the closure of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, as reported by ria.ru.