Yelensky to UN: What persecution of UOC when all churches in Kyiv are open?

Viktor Yelensky. Photo: risu.ua

On January 13, 2025, a press conference titled "Freedom of Conscience in Ukraine: Its Enemies and Defenders" took place, during which Viktor Yelensky, the head of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS), made several statements regarding the functioning of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the alleged infringement of believers' rights in Ukraine.

Yelensky underscored the legitimacy of the Law on the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Religious Organizations’ Activities, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on August 20, 2024.

The DESS head stated: “This law is often called the law banning the UOC. That is untrue! It does not ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; it prohibits the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church.”

When asked by Noelle Calhoun of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees about the alleged persecution of the UOC, Yelensky said these claims by the UN were false. He argued that such assertions were unrelated "to reality and the law".

“Claims about the ban on the UOC? What does it have to do with reality and the law!? Who is banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church? If we step out of this room right now, we can easily enter a Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate,” the politician said.

However, Yelensky did not mention anything whether one could “easily enter” UOC churches in the Kyiv region or western Ukraine.

Previously, the UOJ reported that no UOC communities are left in the Lviv region, according to the head of the Regional Military Administration (RMA).

The UOJ also reported that, according to the Ivano-Frankivsk mayor's report, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast is the first region without the UOC.

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