Patriarch Kirill of Moscow condemned the alleged persecution of Russian Orthodoxy around the world.
“To our sorrow, in a number of countries, people possessed by a diabolical hatred of Orthodoxy continue to wage war against the Russian Orthodox Church,” he said in a Christmas message. “Let us pray for fortitude and peace of mind for all those who are faithful to canonical order and church unity.”
Kirill specified the prosecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), formerly tied to the Moscow Patriarchate.
“A total of 208 criminal cases have been initiated against clergy of the canonical Church to date, and 19 clergy have been stripped of their Ukrainian citizenship and the right to reside in Ukraine, including His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv and All Ukraine,” Kirill said.
Over the past four years, 40 clergy have been sentenced to varying prison terms, he reported, accusing the Ukrainian authorities of “persecuting” UOC clergy.
Kirill is a leading ideological supporter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has frequently asserted that Ukrainians and Russians are “one nation”. His commitment to the state led Pope Francis to warn him not to become “Putin’s altar boy”.
The authorities in Kyiv deny claims of persecution. However, they accuse UOC clergy of blessing Russian soldiers and weapons, supporting Russian aggression against the country and spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda.
Following the full-scale invasion in February 2022, the UOC leadership removed the letters MP (for Moscow Patriarchate) from its name and Metropolitan Onufriy condemned the “fratricidal war”. The UOC representatives now claim to be now “completely independent” from Moscow.
In late 2022, the Ukrainian government introduced legislation banning religious organisations affiliated with Russia, and in summer 2025 the authorities tried to close the administrative centre of the UOC. An investigation by the State Agency for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Religion (DESS) concluded that the UOC Kyiv Metropolis remained affiliated to the Moscow Patriarchate.
The UOC’s lawyers succeeded to postpone the court hearings several times until the end of 2025, arguing that the agency failed to provide all the documentation that it had used to examine the links between the Kyiv Metropolis and Moscow. Viktor Yelensky, head of DESS, accused the UOC of using legal procedures to prolong the process to avoid a substantive hearing on the matter.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has voiced concerns about threats to religious freedom under the legislation.
“We are concerned that the question of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s alleged ecclesiastical and canonical links with the Moscow Patriarchate – currently under judicial scrutiny – restricts the scope of freedom of worship and religious practice,” said a report from the commissioner, Volker Türk, in October.
“These elements are an integral part of the freedom of thought, conscience and religion as upheld in international standards. Freedom of thought, conscience and religion is non-derogable, even in times of armed conflict.”
UOC membership has declined since the Russian invasion, though reportedly still accounts for the majority of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine with around 8,000 parishes as of mid-2024 despite defections to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine.