President: the story of one mistake
In 2019, the Orthodox voted for Zelensky because they saw him as the antipode of Poroshenko. Today we have a completely different person in front of us. Why?
In December 2024, Ukraine was shaken by a scandal – a cooking show was filmed in the Refectory Church of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Many Ukrainians, including high-ranking representatives from various religious denominations, called this event sacrilegious. At the same time, the show's producer, Akim Halimov, instead of apologizing, suddenly attacked the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was expelled from the Lavra’s Refectory Church nearly two years ago. Halimov referred to the UOC as "filth" and "Muscovites" and urged the authorities to "throw it out of our country". At first glance, this seemed like the reaction of an emotionally unstable individual. However, this is not entirely the case. Halimov's statement reflects the state of the ecclesiastical sphere in Ukraine as of the end of 2024.
The level of religious intolerance in Ukraine has reached a "red line". This intolerance is directed exclusively at one (and the largest) religious denomination in the country – the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which nearly a quarter of modern Ukraine’s population identifies with, amounting to over 6 million people. Its communities are being systematically liquidated (the authorities in Lviv region have declared that they have completely cleansed the area of parishes belonging to this denomination). Its churches are being physically demolished (there are reported cases in Kyiv, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk). Furthermore, the country has been rocked by scandals involving the forcible transfer of churches from the UOC to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which in practice often resemble militarized seizures. During such incidents, believers, priests, and even bishops sustain severe injuries. For instance, during the seizure of the cathedral in Cherkasy, Metropolitan Theodosius suffered a concussion after being struck with a bat, and parishioners were shot at with traumatic weapons by individuals in camouflage right inside the cathedral. Additionally, a special law, 3894–IX, has been drafted and enacted against the UOC, aiming to dismantle this denomination in one sweeping blow. In effect, the authorities have declared war on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and are conducting it by all the rules of military strategy.
Most political scientists and experts agree that behind all this looms the dark shadow of one person – President Volodymyr Zelensky. This is especially strange given that, at the beginning of his presidency, his position on religious matters was the exact opposite.
As a presidential candidate, in April 2019, he stated to RBC Ukraine: "The issue of religion is number one. We never discuss things that divide families and society. I never do that. Never." After becoming president, he convincingly said that, regardless of religious affiliation, the main idea for Ukrainians should be to live with mutual respect: "Would it really matter to us which Church Kadeniuk or Lobanovsky go to?" And in a meeting with the believers of the Rivne Eparchy of the UOC in May 2019, Zelensky emphasised that "the state should not interfere with the Church".
This position distinguished Zelensky favorably from his rival in the presidential elections, Petro Poroshenko (the sitting president at the time), who based his campaign on persecuting the believers of the UOC and aggressively promoting another Ukrainian denomination, the OCU. It was under Poroshenko's presidency that the systematic persecution of UOC communities began, with the aim of forcing them to join the OCU.
Zelensky himself, while heading the popular comedy television project "95 Quarter", mocked his opponent for this, referring to the Tomos (the document granting legitimacy to the OCU) as a "thermos".
Thus, Volodymyr Zelensky positioned himself as a politician detached from church matters, which is quite in line with the provisions of the Ukrainian Constitution (it states that the Church is separated from the state).
As a result, it was Zelensky who won the 2019 election. Poroshenko, who had bet on the "Armovir" (Army-Faith-Language) slogans, suffered a resounding defeat. Thus, the new President could not fail to understand that using the religious issue for political purposes was not only illegal but also counterproductive. Nevertheless, by the end of 2024, we see that Zelensky has resumed the persecution of the UOC, doing it much tougher than his "teacher". But at what point did the current President decide to change his policy towards the Church? And for what reasons?
Power and the UOC: a sudden 180-degree turnaround
Undoubtedly, the turning point was the war that Russia unleashed against Ukraine. However, the UOC showed in the very first hours of the war whose side they were on. On the first day of the invasion, Metropolitan Onuphry condemned Russia's aggression and called on his flock to defend their Homeland. This position was reaffirmed in all subsequent statements by the UOC Synod. In May 2022, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church held a Council, during which it actually severed all ties with the Russian Orthodox Church and made these changes to its Statute ("Constitution", the governing document of the Church). In other words, the UOC showed that it was with the people of Ukraine.
Zelensky saw and knew this. On 12 March 2022, he thanked the UOC for its assistance in organizing a humanitarian convoy to besieged Mariupol. The same attitude was shown by all other representatives of the government. The head of the President's Office, Andriy Yermak, wrote in March 2022 that "useful idiots" were spreading the idea of a religious conflict in society due to the presence of a "Russian Church" in Ukraine. The same sentiment was expressed in April of that year by the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk, who commented on the idea of a legislative ban on the UOC: "During the war, we have no right to adopt any law that divides Ukrainian society." A similar stance was taken by Yermak's advisor and the de facto spokesperson for the President's Office, Mykhailo Podoliak, who, during this period, called for "not speculating" on the issue of banning the UOC, because otherwise, "we may face internal conflict, and today, unity, which Ukraine has demonstrated to the world, is far more essential and much more important." Furthermore, Podoliak stated at the time that the UOC was a structure different from the ROC, one that rejected Russian aggression. It is important to note that this was said before the UOC Council.
Oleksandr Tkachenko, the then Minister of Culture, in September 2022, sharply reprimanded journalists who referred to the UOC as the "Moscow Patriarchate": "I do not know any ROC representatives in Ukraine. There is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which, at the last Synod, distanced itself precisely from the ROC."
But then, not much time passed before government representatives began saying completely opposite things about the UOC.
In January 2023, Podoliak stated that the UOC was a "propaganda institute" that "works for the values of another country". Other figures of our research made similar claims during this period. Stefanchuk said that the UOC "poses a national security threat to Ukraine". Tkachenko, completely forgetting his previous statement that he "did not know about the ROC in Ukraine", calmly referred to the UOC as the "Moscow Patriarchate" and claimed that it allegedly supported the war. In other words, within two to three months (from September 2022 to January 2023), the authorities made the decision to completely change their stance towards the UOC.
What happened? Could it be that representatives of the Church took some hostile actions towards the state? No. The UOC still helps the army more than any other denomination, supports migrants and victims of hostilities. In addition, it is the UOC that has suffered the most from the war. The majority of the hundreds of destroyed churches belong to this denomination, and dozens of its clergy have been killed or wounded during the fighting.
Nevertheless, Volodymyr Zelensky suddenly begins his attack on the UOC. On 1 December 2022, he held a meeting of the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC), during which he instructed to draft a bill to ban the activities of “religious organizations affiliated with the Russian Federation” and gave the go-ahead to expel the UOC from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The President also ordered the "activation of measures to identify and counteract the subversive activities of Russian intelligence services in Ukraine’s religious sphere". At the same time, large-scale searches by the SBU have been taking place in monasteries, churches and eparchial offices of the UOC across the country since the end of November.
In fact, the Ukrainian secret police found nothing, and their actions were more of a public intimidation nature. They were meant to show society that "there is no smoke without fire", and that the UOC is an enemy of Ukraine.
Obviously, the task of black PR against the Church was assigned not only to the Security Service but also to Zelensky's former media colleagues.
Almost all central and regional media outlets in Ukraine began to talk about the UOC in a derogatory and offensive manner, labelling it as "Kremlin supporters", "agents of Putin", "FSB agents", and so on. But the President's friends from the “95 Quarter” went the furthest. After Zelensky's statement on the UOC, they released a blasphemous issue of the program “Bayraktar News”, in which they said that “Ukraine bans on its territory the activities of the Russian father, the Moscow son and the bunker spirit”. (a direct mockery of the dogma of the Trinity). The actors also made crude remarks on air about the UOC, using offensive language and de facto called for the beating and killing of priests. This program sparked mass outrage among Ukrainians. Lawyers for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church filed a lawsuit, but it had no consequences. And everyone understands for what reasons. The head of the SBU, Maliuk, openly stated on "1+1" that all issues related to his organization’s work on the UOC are personally overseen by Zelensky: "Right now, all of this is happening under the leadership of our President of Ukraine."
The beginning of terror
In fact, after this program and the inaction of law enforcement, a green light was given for the harshest actions against the UOC. Since then, there has been a surge in violence against the clergy and believers of the Church.
On 25 December 2022, in a UOC temple in Chornomorsk, a man with a knife attempted to stab a priest during a service. On 2 January 2023, in a UOC church in Vinnytsia, an offender slit a priest's throat with a razor. In April 2023, a thug attacked Bishop Nikita of Ivano-Frankivsk on the street and punched him in the face several times. In November 2023, during the seizure of the UOC Monastery of the Nativity of the Holy Theotokos, Priest Serhiy Pashchenko was brutally beaten – his jaw was broken in two places. At the same time, an elderly parishioner, Oleh Slobodianyk, had his leg broken. And these are just a few of the most well-known examples. In reality, there are many more.
In the spring of 2023, a wave of mass and brutal seizures of UOC temples began in Western Ukraine, which, with varying success, has continued across the country to this day. In fact, UOC eparchies in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions have been completely destroyed, with a dire situation in the Ternopil, Volyn and Khmelnytskyi regions. Almost all the UOC churches in the Kyiv region have been seized.
At the same time, the authorities pretend that none of this is happening. Officials and representatives of "court" denominations convince the West that Ukraine is a country of exceptional religious freedom. Those who speak the truth are thrown into prison, as happened to the UOJ journalists. The persecution of the UOC is only openly discussed abroad. Among those speaking out was the new US Vice President JD Vance, and similar statements were made by politicians such as Catherine Whiteford, Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission.
Yet, the question remains: why did Volodymyr Zelensky start this shameful campaign against his own people? After all, the millions of UOC believers are just as Ukrainian as everyone else: atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and so on. Their right to religious freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution. Why is this right so cynically taken away from them?
“Do you want to lose the war? Then start a war against God, ban the Church”
Perhaps, we should go back to that period of 2022, when Zelensky, together with his entourage, so lightning-fast changed his attitude to the church issue. Let us recall that it happened in November-December. It was the time when the lightning counter-offensive of Ukraine, which resulted in the liberation of significant territories of the country, was booted and in fact ended. At the same time, the people on a wave of euphoria expected more and more victories. And they were demonstated to the people. Victories over their own fellow citizens.
Faithful soldiers began to massively record appeals from the front to the authorities, demanding to stop repression against their Church.
“There are millions of us, Orthodox,” said one of the warriors and called on the authorities to stop the persecution of the UOC. Another remarked that he was defending not only the state but also his Church at the front.
Well, one of the priests explained that the war against the UOC would lead Ukraine to defeat.
“Do you want to lose the war? Then start a war against God. Ban the Church. Take away the temples. Beat and abuse the priests. Beat and abuse their parishioners. And you will lose the war. Because not a single person in history has ever won nor will anyone ever win a war against God – this is an obvious thing,” the clergyman said.
These words were said at the beginning of 2023. And now, almost two years later, it is difficult to claim that he was wrong. After Zelensky began the terror against his own Orthodox citizens, the situation on the front line is not encouraging for Ukrainians. One could call it a coincidence, or one could see a pattern.
Petro Poroshenko, who once made the "victory" over the "wrong" Church the main trump card of his policy, has ingloriously lost. Volodymyr Zelensky, who is undoubtedly a talented and intelligent man, decided to follow in Poroshenko's footsteps. And so, he is making the same mistake.
Those who fight against God have no prospects.
