Public Advocacy at OSCE: Community must respond to situation around UOC

An OSCE meeting in Warsaw. Photo: the OSCE website

At the OSCE meeting in Warsaw on October 5-6, 2023, Oleh Denisov, the head of the human rights organization with consultative status at the UN Economic and Social Council ‘Public Advocacy’, described to colleagues the most blatant cases of persecution of UOC believers and called on the international community to react to them immediately. Denisov's report "Violations of the Rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church" was published on the NGO Public Advocacy website.

Denisov informed his colleagues that an information campaign in the media, along with the spread of false narratives about the "belonging of the UOC to Moscow", had led to an entrenched negative policy towards the followers of this denomination at various levels of power and among the population.

This provided a pretext for state authorities to make decisions regarding the "ban on the UOC" and the "termination of land rights", even though in many cases, temples had already been built on these lands. Denisov noted that such decisions "definitely have a populist nature, as confirmed by the mayors of these cities themselves", and more importantly, they contradict Ukrainian law.

"However, they have political, informational, and psychological significance since they contribute to the formation of a politically hostile trend towards the UOC in society and send a real signal that the UOC faithful may have their temples and land plots taken away and their rights may be violated with impunity," said the human rights defender.

He pointed out that all of this was noted in the UN report (A/HRC/51/CRP.1). However, since then, the situation has significantly deteriorated.

"At present, the situation continues to develop for the worse. Unlike decisions to 'ban the UOC', the decisions of state authorities to terminate the rights of specific legal entities of the UOC to the land plots they own are nothing but the confiscation of property carried out with obvious discriminatory motives and in violation of the law," stated Oleh Denisov, emphasizing that all these actions are aimed at forcing the episcopate and the faithful of the UOC to "change their religious affiliation and join the 'Orthodox Church of Ukraine', created by the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the support of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko."

For the same purpose, as the leader of Public Advocacy notes, the state expelled students and teachers of the Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in an attempt to take control of the Lavra complex.

Moreover, since August 11, 2023, the authorities "completely blocked the access of the UOC faithful to the territory of the Lower Lavra, the most visited part of the monastery, where shrines for the worship of the faithful are located."

Denisov also noted that when the state transferred Lavra premises to the Church in 1988 but retained ownership rights, it played an "unfair game" that was "reminiscent of fraudulent schemes". This is especially evident because the faithful, with their own efforts and resources, restored shrines after the Soviet period when all these church buildings were in a semi-ruined state.

"The actions of the state authorities in this matter should raise separate concerns from the international community, which is genuinely concerned about the fate of international law and the observance of human rights. Obviously, the Ukrainian state seeks to mask its blatantly unlawful attempts to seize UOC temples under the guise of 'legal proceedings' and 'legal legitimacy'. However, at the same time, the police do not hesitate to take such actions as breaking into buildings (currently owned by the UOC) and even blocking believers inside these buildings, depriving them of food and water," Denisov concluded.

As earlier reported, repressions against the UOC are discussed at the OSCE meeting.

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