To skip down and sign the petition, click here.
Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the United States has provided over $100 Billion in tax payer money to prop up the Zelensky government in Kiev. Without those funds, the Ukrainian Government would have collapsed long ago, and this war would be over. Regardless of how you feel about that, it is simply a fact. Ukraine is totally dependent on US aid to function.
American and Western money does not only fund military operations against Russia. It also funds Christian persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). As we noted in our initial article accompanying our petition drive:
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed by His Eminence Metropolitan Onuphry, is a self-governing, canonical Orthodox Church on the territory of Ukraine. His Eminence is a native born Ukrainian, the same as the vast majority of his fellow UOC hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and parishioners. The UOC is the canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine to which 70% of all Ukrainians belonged prior to the war.
The UOC, since the 2014 coup in Kiev, has faced severe and escalating persecution. This has included the forcible seizure of parishes, physical abuse of clergy and parishioners, arrest of clergy, desecration of icons and Churches, intentional targeting for military attacks, and more. Two laws have been proposed since 2016 that would outright ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church across the nation. Thanks be to God that neither of them has yet been enacted.
The Ukrainian government has organized searches of monasteries, churches, and diocesan administrations that have resulted in allegations of planting “pro-Russian” evidence. The Ukrainian Security Service has opened cases against hierarchs and clergy on the basis of trumped up charges. Local administrations continue to declare bans on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Worst of all, President Zelensky issued a decree on December 1st that ordered:
- The National Security and Defense Council to instruct the government to submit a bill to Parliament within two months that would ban religious organizations “affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation.”
Recently, the situation has gotten even worse. On December 28, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled that the bill calling for the forced renaming of religious organizations associated with organizations in Russia is constitutional. The way is now clear for the government to rename the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as the “Russian Orthodox Church” or whatever else is decided. This bill is happening to further the process of an outright legal ban. This is happening despite two very important facts – the UOC is self-governing and already adopted statutes in May 2022 that removed all connection to the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Ukrainian Government, with American aid, is persecuting a Ukrainian Church led by Ukrainian clergy and ministering to a Ukrainian population. Prior to the war, 70% of all Ukrainians belonged to the UOC. After years of Church seizures and persecution, no one knows what the exact numbers are at this point. However, it is clear that millions of Ukrainian believers, both inside and outside Ukraine, still cling to the canonical Church. To minister to the Ukrainian Christians who have fled the war, the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church has already established 32 parishes in 11 countries of Western Europe.
The view of the Ukrainian state that the UOC is “associated with Russia” is pure propaganda to justify legislative action that would enable the mass seizure of Churches, monasteries, and other Church property. This is already occurring and will accelerate. On December 27, the abbot of the Kiev Caves Lavra monastery, the heart of Ukrainian and Russian Orthodoxy, was informed that his lease was up beginning January 1, 2023. From that date, the canonical Orthodox Church would not be allowed to hold services in the main churches of the Lavra. Will an order to vacate be next? There are over 200 monks at the monastery. The government preferred “nationalist” and schismatic Church, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), has only a fraction of the monks needed to keep up the Lavra. The canonical Church held its last service in the Upper Lavra on New Year’s Eve 2022.
On January 4th, 2023 it was announced that the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” will celebrate Nativity in the Lavra’s Holy Dormition Cathedral for old calendar Orthodox Christmas. The canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the broader Orthodox Church worldwide believe the OCU, created by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and the Ukrainian and US governments in late 2018, to be graceless schismatics who trace their lineage back to the defrocked and anathematized “Patriarch” Philaret Denisenko and other unordained and schismatic “hierarchs.” This celebration of OCU clergy in the heart of Ukrainian Orthodoxy will be an affront to God, and will only foreshadow even greater persecution to come.
The UOC press service commented:
This event will be a major disgrace for Ukraine. Unlike other cases with the seizure of our churches by supporters of the OCU, in this case, the raiding takes place directly by order of the highest authorities. The Local Churches abroad would be surprised, to put it mildly, by the state of the freedom of conscience and right to religious confession in our country.
Many regular Ukrainians, including serving members of the Ukrainian armed forces, have recorded videos expressing their shock at the persecution of their Church.
Another Ukranian solider condemns the targeting and persecution of the canonical Ukranian Orthodox Church:
"They fight the Church…If they hurt the Body of Christ, then what will God do to us?" pic.twitter.com/vhKxoozMgp
— Live Not by Lies (@Dana35300026) December 14, 2022
Metropolitan Longin of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church put matters quite bluntly:
“Today our Ukrainian State has begun a war against God, against the Church of God, and against the Ukrainian people. This is not fighting evil, this is not fighting the enemy, brothers and sisters. This is a struggle against the Lord God Himself and His Church.”
If the Ukrainian State is at war with God, and NATO (particularly America) is the reason this government is still functioning, then are not we at war with God as well?
It is imperative that we in the West denounce this monstrous Christian persecution in the strongest possible terms. In the US, we are currently watching how a small number of Republican Congressmen have managed to bring the House of Representatives to a halt. A determined minority can make all the difference. Faithful Christians in the West should learn that lesson and stand up for Christ and His Church in Ukraine. To that end, we are offering the petition below.
Please keep the following in mind as you consider signing the petition:
- The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is not Russian. At this point, it is not affiliated with Russia in any way.
- Persecuting the UOC does not benefit the Ukrainian Government. It further divides the country and makes a long-term solution to the war even harder. This was done at the behest of the United States and a small, ultra-nationalist faction within the Ukrainian Government.
- Persecuting the UOC does not benefit the Orthodox Church globally. The establishment of the OCU has splintered Orthodox unity since 2018. These new, aggressive moves with further inflame tensions and drive local Orthodox Churches further apart.
- If our Western Governments can sponsor the oppression of Christians in Ukraine with impunity, why do we assume that the persecution will not be brought home to us?
This persecution must end. As Christians and believers in religious freedom, we in the West cannot stay silent.
The signatures collected, after the close of the petition on 1/15/2023, will be forwarded to the Assembly of Bishops and to each canonical jurisdiction in the US, Canada, and Western Europe. The totals by jurisdiction and country will be sent to secular media, human rights organizations, Roman Catholic media channels, and published on social media.
Non-Orthodox Christians are also welcome to sign and show their support. Please indicate your church affiliation in the field asking for Jurisdiction / Denomination.
This is your opportunity to stand up for fellow Orthodox Christians. Please do not let our fellow Christians suffer in silence. Sign the petition and share it as widely as you can.
Click the Read the Petition link below to read the text of the petition, or scroll to the very bottom where it is repeated, or click here to skip down to it.
Please Note: You will need to confirm your email address for your signature to count! After signing, please check your inbox. Go to the bottom of the page to see current signatures.
We Demand an End to Christian Persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
We are gathering signatures for this petition on our Orthodox Reflections Website, rather than on Change.org or competing sites. This is for two reasons. First, petition sites have been using gathered email addresses for fundraising – both directly and via resales of email lists. Orthodox Reflections does not fund raise, accept donations, or sell/share email addresses with any organization. (Anyone wishing to thank us for our work is encouraged to donate to support Orthodox missions.) Your email addresses and other information are secure with us. We will only use it for this purpose only. If you want to hear from us on a regular basis, that is up to you as you can opt-in for future mailings. Second, the petition sites support many causes which we, as Orthodox Christians, find unacceptable and do not wish to be associated with.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the canonical church in Ukraine headed by Metropolitan Onuphry. Prior to the war, approximately 70% of the population of Ukraine belonged to the UOC. Ukrainians overwhelmingly supported their Church, despite having been subjected to politically motivated persecution for many years. The violations of human rights directed at Orthodox Christian in Ukraine have included: forcible seizure / closure of parishes, unlawful arrests, physical abuse, abusive searches of holy sites, desecrations of holy objects, intentional targeting of parishes and holy sites for military attack, and acts of physical intimidation. Recently, local governments have banned the Ukrainian Church from even operating in their areas. President Zelensky of Ukraine has threatened to make this ban nationwide. The main churches of Kiev Caves Lavra have been removed from UOC jurisdiction, and schismatics have been allowed to use them for services.
We, the undersigned Orthodox Christians and allied Christians of good conscience, note three things. First, the situation in Ukraine is unjustified Christian persecution that violates all global norms. Second, the Ukrainian Government is wholly dependent on Western financial and military support for its continued existence. Therefore, Christians in the West bear a substantial responsibility to speak for the Ukrainian victims of persecution. Third, protests from official organizations matter more to those in power than collections of citizens. Therefore, we signers of this petition call upon the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America, all Orthodox jurisdictions in the West, all official Orthodox Christian ministries and institutions of higher education, all human rights organizations, the Roman Catholic Church, all other Christian bodies of good will, and any other concerned organizations to immediately draft statements decrying the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and demanding its immediate cessation.
We cannot be silent in the face of Christian persecution enabled by our own governments. Please join us in ending the persecution of the Body of Christ in Ukraine.
[…] changes to liturgical practices, against transgenderism, against gay rights, against the US-backed persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and strongly in favor of traditional Orthodox morality. Fr Peter […]
Now there is an interesting website: FINES ET INITIA
Power struggles are like poker games (I should have learned how to play–we thought it was sin to gamble, but gambling is part of life) Men of “power” gamble with other people’s lives. It’s seldom about how much power one has, but rather how convincing one can bluff. Masters of deception wield power that does not really exist, even without the right cards they win for a while, until things are put to the test. These men always over play their hand. Power is obsessive compulsive intoxication eventually making fools out of good men. There is an old saying: give a man enough rope and he will hang himself.
Ukraine has always been a mystery to me. With a checkered history, It has–for whatever reason–been the target for so many intoxicated with power. There seems to be some spiritual nexus there as well. What vested interests does Satan have there to make it such a target. Everytime I turn around I read something about bio-weapons-labs or child trafficing, or Neonazis, or whatever. I hurt for the people who are just caught in the crossfire of global power struggles that seem to be unceasing there. Ukraine is merely a chess board for world powers who care not one iota for the natives. While a petition is a good statement and soothing to our consciousness to the human suffering, nothing short of Divine intervention will get the attention of the perpetrators of evil.
Interestingly, what is happening in Ukraine is paralleled to what is happening with Orthodoxy in America. Her generations of wealth, prosperity, and virtue are being plundered as when the Crusaders of the west plundered Constantinople. It took them 50 years to find the bottom of that wealth before they abandoned the carcass. Will we last even another decade? I doubt it. But, like the Phoenix, resurrection will come.