Propaganda tour: Trump’s advisor and the mirage of faith freedom in Ukraine

Trump’s spiritual advisor may have been manipulated in Ukraine. Photo: UOJ

UOJ American author Benjamin Dixon analyzes the visit to Ukraine of Pastor Mark Burns, whom Ukraine's Chief Rabbi Moshe Asman calls Donald Trump's “personal spiritual advisor”.

Pastor Mark Burns claims that before the guided tour of Ukraine, he had been “brainwashed”. Previously, Burns had spoken out against continued funding for Ukraine, viewing it as contrary to the America First agenda. Today, he says that after seeing things on the ground, he has changed his mind. In reality, the Ukrainian authorities showed him a misleading image of the country.

Upon arriving in Ukraine, Burns was met by a handpicked group of religious figures who escorted him through what U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance bluntly described as a “propaganda tour.” Notably missing were any hierarchs of the canonical UOC – a church with more faithful in Ukraine than any other. Why were they absent? Because their presence would have shattered the illusion.

Having clergy from the UOC on such a tour would have been deeply inconvenient for a government trying to convince Burns that Ukraine respects religious freedom and freedom of conscience.

But there is no religious freedom in Ukraine.

The largest religious organization in the country has endured systemic persecution for years. Thousands of its churches have been seized – often violently – by radicals, some of whom are clergy or members of the very groups who led Burns on his “spiritual” tour. Chief among these is the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU), a parallel structure hastily cobbled together in 2018 by Constantinople from previously defrocked or anathematized clergy.

Every religious leader Burns met supported draft law No. 8371 – known widely as the “ban the UOC law.” Since its passage, conditions for believers in Ukraine have worsened dramatically. Hostility has become bolder. The harshest parts of the law are scheduled to take effect in May 2025, outlawing the canonical, thousand-year-old  Ukrainian Orthodox Church altogether.

Is this religious freedom?

On April 12, OCU activists disrupted a Lazarus Saturday service held by UOC parishioners in Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi. The OCU had already seized the parish’s church, forcing them to hold outdoor worship services, rain or shine, for over a year. During the service, OCU activists approached the altar, lit a cigarette, and extinguished candles.

Just last week, militants raided the UOC’s St. Nicholas Church in Verkhni Stanivtsi – led by Roman Hryshchuk, a priest in the state-backed OCU. When this raid failed, they returned with police support and seized the parish on Lazarus Saturday....

This same church was, of course, represented in Pastor Burns’ assigned entourage. They told him there was no religious persecution – while their agents plotted church raids.

Is this religious freedom?

What about freedom of the press, a cornerstone of American society, a right our Founding Fathers declared sacred and God-given?

Sadly, there is no freedom of the press in Ukraine.

Journalists are regularly imprisoned for reporting the truth about religious persecution. I, myself – who would love to go to Ukraine, to pray for peace with my brothers and sisters and offer even a small comfort for their immense and unimaginable loss – would likely end up like Gonzalo Lira if I went to Ukraine, even if only on pilgrimage to the many holy sites I long to see in my lifetime.

For those who’ve forgotten – since our media was complicit in covering up his death – Gonzalo Lira was a novelist, filmmaker, journalist, and internet influencer. He was arrested in Ukraine for “spreading Russian propaganda,” which meant voicing any dissent from the regime’s narrative. After months of medical neglect in prison, he died in a Ukrainian jail in Kharkiv. No answers have been given by Ukrainian authorities.

Is that what we’re calling “freedom of the press”?

Speaking of press freedom, our own website is banned in Ukraine – blacklisted at the request of the SBU. Why? Because we sometimes report on events in Ukraine. Not as enemies, but because our conscience compels us to speak. Our primary mission is to tell the story of the Church in America. Yet Ukraine’s government has grown so hostile to independent media that it has cut its citizens off even from American religious journalism.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Let those with eyes see!

Pastor Burns believes he went to Ukraine and had his eyes opened. In truth, he walked into a show – and now he sees with eyes deliberately closed. Despite invoking the Holy Spirit, he was taken in by a standard propaganda performance – no different from a corporate investor being shown a staged factory with smiling workers and scrubbed floors.

Let me be clear: this is not an apology for Russia’s actions in Ukraine – far from it. We’ve seen the videos of bombed churches (regularly reported by UOJ), and we know of Russian soldiers executing prisoners. These horrors happened, and we won’t minimize them – God forbid.

But Ukraine is not blameless.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth for those who always point to Russia: we – Americans – do not fund the Russian military. We have no say over Russia’s decisions. But we do fund Ukraine. We do influence Ukraine. And for years, we have.

I want Ukraine to be a beacon of religious freedom. I want it to be a refuge for a free press. But it isn’t. And I say this as a Trump supporter – one from the very beginning, from that escalator ride in 2016. My mother and I prayed for him to run. I want him to succeed. And I want his spiritual advisors to advise him well.

If Pastor Burns truly wants to know the truth, if he wants to serve his country and his president, he must sit down with the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine. He must speak to young, courageous defenders of the faith like Tetiana Tsaruk. He must ask to meet with the imprisoned journalists who risked everything to report the truth.

Only then will he see the reality.

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