National University discusses ways of combating UOC in Ukraine and abroad

Participants of the conference on combating the UOC. Photo: National University website

From March 14 to 17, 2025, Kyiv National University named after Shevchenko hosted events under the title "Russia's Religious Policy as a Weapon of Hybrid Warfare: Implementation Directions and Counteraction Mechanisms," the university’s website reports.

The conference was organized by the Research Institute of Ukrainian Studies at KNU in partnership with the Office of the General Prosecutor, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Department of Religious Studies of the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the National Holodomor-Genocide Museum, with support from the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, and several other institutions.

The conference program included four panel discussions:

• Legal challenges and strategies for counteracting Russia's religious policy in hybrid warfare;
• The ROC’s activities abroad: A network of churches as centers for spreading Russian propaganda and subversive operations;
• The ROC’s destructive activities and those of its affiliates in Ukraine:
• Non-Orthodox denominations in Russia following the ‘Russian World’ doctrine: Causes, motives, and consequences.

Speakers at the event included:

• Yaroslav Yurchyshyn (head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech);
• Andriy Oleynyk (representative of the General Prosecutor's Office);
• Eduard Lytvynenko (expert from the Kyiv National Institute for Strategic Studies, known for writing expert opinions in the UOJ case);
• Roman Fedinyshyn and Oksana Serbinenko (representatives of the SBU);
• Religious scholars Serhii Shumylo and Oleksandr Sashan;
• UGCC cleric O. Petriv, and others.

Reports indicate that these speakers "shared interesting cases regarding the subversive activities of the Russian Church, its concealed strategies of influence on specific communities with the aim of destabilization."

Participants claimed that "such cases are increasingly occurring in EU countries" and labeled UOC parishes in the diaspora as "destructive agents of the ROC both abroad and in Ukraine."

According to the organizers, the discussions should lead to practical steps in two strategic directions:

1. Improving legislation and procedural frameworks, ensuring public oversight over compliance with current laws and enforcement of court rulings.
2. Broad public awareness efforts about the destructive role of the ROC and systematically presenting evidence of its subversive activities to European partners and the public.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that a Ukrainian MP accused UOC parishioners abroad of espionage due to their husbands' service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

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