In a telephone conversation with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, he reaffirmed "that our state wants to further strengthen Orthodoxy in Ukraine and promote open dialogue between the churches", the head of state announced on Wednesday evening in the online services X and Telegram.
According to the presidential office, Zelenskyy also reiterated his invitation to the honorary head of the Orthodox church to visit Ukraine.
In the conversation, he also backed a law passed by the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday to ban religious organisations linked to Russia.
"An independent country, an independent people must also be spiritually independent," said Zelenskyy. With the law, Moscow would lose "another lever of influence on Ukraine and the Ukrainians".
Accusation of collaboration with Russia
The law is directed against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOK), which is accused of collaborating with Russia and propaganda in favour of the country waging war against Ukraine.
The church rejects this.
Courts had sentenced individual clergymen to prison for, among other things, betraying Ukrainian army positions to the Russian secret service.
At the earliest nine months after the law comes into force, courts are to examine upon request whether individual congregations or other structures of religious communities are linked to Russia and ban them if necessary.
The UOK as a whole is not a legal entity and cannot be completely dissolved in a single court case.
More than 1,000 parishes are already at risk of losing their places of worship. This is because their rental contracts with the state and local authorities are to be declared invalid if they are linked to the Moscow patriarchate.
The government in Kiev supports the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OKU), which was founded more than five years ago with the help of Bartholomew I.
According to surveys, many more citizens are committed to it than to the UOK.