Did Ukraine really BAN the Orthodox Church?

Welcome to Episode 3 of the Geopolitics Snapshot, where we take a look at current geopolitical events that are shaping the world around us!

In August 2024, the Ukrainian parliament approved a controversial new bill that will enable Ukrainian authorities to disband the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Since then, headlines like “Ukraine just banned the Orthodox Church” or “Ukraine is banning the Russian-Orthodox Church” have circulated online - but is this really the case?

In actuality, the religious situation in Ukraine is way more complicated than often depicted. While being a predominantly Orthodox-Christian country, Ukraine has been the religious battle-ground of two competing orthodox churches since 2018.

On the one hand, we have the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), sometimes also called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Until 2022, this church was part of the Russian Orthodox Church, but then split due to the latter's support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine - however, many in Ukraine doubt the sincerity of this split.

On the other hand, we have the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a church that was formed in 2018 with the approval of the Patriarch of Constantinople. This church has no former connection to the Russian Orthodox Church which is why it's also favoured by the Ukrainian government.

While it is strongly debated whether or not the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is still affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church, the new Ukrainian law has been heavily criticised by religious organisations and human rights advocates, as it allows the Ukrainian authorities to disband any religious organisation that they conclude is affiliated with Russia.
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Music:

"News Theme" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons:
By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
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Sources (That are not featured directly in the video):

Timothy Ware (2015) The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity

Dmytro Vovk, Elizabeth A. Clark (2019) Religion During the Russian Ukrainian Conflict

Andriy Fert (2024) Is There a Russian Church in Ukraine? In: Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) Publications.

For more information about other sources I used, feel free to email me.
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#ukrainewar #ukrainerussiawar #russiaukrainewar