Pope Francis has spoken out about a Ukrainian law that bans the Russian Orthodox Church and affiliation with it because of its official support of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Source: OSV News.
“Please, let no Christian church be abolished directly or indirectly: the churches are not to be touched,” Pope Francis said about the law, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed on August 24, Ukrainian independence day.
“I continue to follow with sorrow the fighting in Ukraine and the Russian Federation,” Pope Francis told visitors and pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square yesterday for the recitation of the Angelus prayer.
But, he said, “thinking about the legal regulations recently adopted in Ukraine, a fear arises for the freedom of those who pray, because those who truly pray always pray for everyone. One does not commit evil because one prays”.
Ukrainian lawmakers approved a bill on August 20 to ban the Russian Orthodox Church and its affiliates in Ukraine. The law requires the Ukrainian Orthodox Church affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate to sever all ties with the Russian Orthodox Church or face a process that would lead to its disbanding.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has publicly blessed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine and consistently has expounded the “Russian World” or “Russkii Mir” ideology, which claims Ukraine as part of the religious, cultural and political sphere of Russian influence.
The Religious Information Service of Ukraine, which was founded at the Catholic University of Ukraine in Lviv, reported on August 21 that Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said the law “is not a ban on the church, but a means of protection from the danger of using religion as a weapon”.
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Pope expresses concern about religious freedom in Ukraine (By Cindy Wooden, OSV News)
