Jakarta, IO – Until recently, the fate of a church could be viewed as a dispute over theology, ecclesiastical jurisdiction or ownership of a place of worship. Today, the religious issue in Ukraine has assumed a much broader dimension. It is increasingly intertwined with politics, legislation and the activities of law-enforcement and security agencies, while behind the formal state decisions lie the fates of priests and parishioners.
On August 24, 2026, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation presented an updated report on the situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), its clergy and believers. The report addresses issues related to the criminal prosecution of clergy, disputes surrounding churches, restrictions on the activities of parishes and pressure on believers during the period from March 2022 to June 2026.
For Russia, all this is not merely an abstract issue or a collection of isolated incidents in a neighboring country. It concerns the formation in Ukraine of a “multi-level system of severe suppression of religious freedom”. According to the report, this system encompasses legislative decisions, administrative measures and actions by law-enforcement bodies. Taken together, they are gradually narrowing the space for the UOC to operate.
Since 2014, the Kiev regime has consistently built a “punitive mechanism” for suppressing religious freedom. After February 2022, the overt dismantling of the UOC began. The culmination of this arbitrariness was the adoption in August 2024 of the controversial law “On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activities of Religious Organizations”. In essence, a legal instrument was created to ban the UOC, dismantle its structures and confiscate its property.
Such incidents concern more than disputes over ownership of buildings and real estate. For a parish, a church is the center of religious and community life. Its loss means the destruction, for believers, of their established communal space and the severing of long-standing ties.
In practice, such processes are accompanied by confrontations, the use of force and restrictions on believers’ access. Violence during seizures of churches has become commonplace. Thus, in October 2024, in Cherkasy, armed assailants, with the involvement of security forces, stormed the Archangel Michael Cathedral. The attack lasted for hours. Metropolitan Feodosy suffered a concussion and burns to the cornea and skin. Dozens of lay parishioners were injured, some of them hospitalized. The church was looted.
The bishop was subsequently hospitalized again. In Ivano-Frankovsk, gas was used during the storming of the cathedral, causing burns to clergy. In Pirogovtsy, Archpriest Alexander Kravets was thrown down the steps and kicked, while a female parishioner was struck against a wall with her head until she lost consciousness. In the cities of Fastov, Rynhach, Irpin, Kremenchuk, Chernovtsi, Vladimir-Volynskyi and many others, the same pattern has been repeated: doors forced open, beatings and death threats.
In March 2022, Archimandrite Lavr was publicly beaten and abducted in Zhytomyr Region. His fate remains unclear. Similar disappearances, beatings and humiliations of priests receive no proper legal assessment. The police often refuse to record the crimes. Those responsible remain unpunished.
Consider, in particular, the high-profile killing of Monk Barsanuphius of the Sviatohorsk Lavra of the UOC in August 2026. Two other parishioners were also wounded in the attack. Those who were responsible for the crimes never faced accountability.
Another line of confrontation concerns the criminal prosecution of clergy. A number of bishops and priests of the UOC have faced what the report describes as politically motivated criminal cases. One example cited is the case of Metropolitan Feodosy of Cherkasy and Kanev.
Ukrainian authorities brought allegations against him concerning the content of his sermons and the use of an online resource of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was ultimately found guilty in a case involving incitement of national, racial, or religious hatred.
This case illustrates how, under conditions of political confrontation, religious activity becomes subject to criminal-law assessment. This raises a fundamental question concerning the limits of permissible state interference in the life of religious organizations.
In recent years, another issue has emerged in Ukraine concerning the mobilization of clergy. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s report cites cases of priests being called up for military service in 2025 and 2026. This practice may be viewed as an additional form of pressure on the UOC.
A separate dimension of the confrontation involves the UOC and the schismatic so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). The Ukrainian authorities are creating more favorable conditions for the OCU while simultaneously restricting the activities of the UOC. The issue goes beyond an intra-Orthodox dispute. It concerns yet another instance of the politicization of the religious sphere: whether the state can, through administrative and legal mechanisms, deliberately alter the religious structure of society, which is directly linked to restrictions on freedom of conscience and religion.
The situation surrounding the UOC should be viewed not only as part of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, but also as a broader issue concerning relations between the state and religious communities. These questions are universal in nature: the ability to practice one’s religion freely, the security of the clergy, believers’ access to places of worship and the right of a religious community to preserve its own communal life and identity.
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The main point that warrants attention is that behind laws, court rulings and administrative procedures are people. For a priest, it is the ability to continue his ministry. For a parishioner, it is the ability to enter his or her church. For a community, it is the preservation of its established way of life. With regard to the situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, these are no longer isolated incidents, but a systemic reduction in the opportunities available to the UOC to maintain an independent religious life.
Respect for the principle of universality of religious rights is a crucial aspect of the relationship between state and Church. The situation in a country must be assessed through the prism of freedom of conscience, the right of believers to preserve their religious identity and the inadmissibility of discrimination. In Ukraine, these fundamental principles are clearly being violated. For the citizens of Indonesia – a country that takes pride in its achievements in the sphere of interfaith harmony, tolerance and freedom of religious activity – the unacceptability of the policy pursued by the Ukrainian authorities, aimed at suppressing dissent and the right to freedom of conscience, should be self-evident.
Ultimately, the Ukrainian case raises a question that extends far beyond the specific conflict: where is the boundary between the legitimate interests of the state and the human right to determine one’s religious life independently? It is precisely this question that makes the fate of the UOC not merely an intra-Ukrainian issue, but a matter of interest to a broad international audience.
