KYIV, October 17 ------ Four-fifths of Ukrainians said they supported a new law banning Russia-affiliated religious groups in a survey released, as Kyiv seeks to root out a branch of the Orthodox Church accused of cooperating with Moscow, which is waging war on Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which counted 6% of the respondents as followers, has for years faced accusations that it is a tool of Moscow's influence in Ukraine and that some of its clergy cooperate with Russian intelligence. The church denies these allegations and maintains that it officially broke off all ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, previously its parent church, in May 2022 - three months after Russia invaded Ukraine.
In August, Ukraine passed a law that bans the Russian Orthodox Church on Ukrainian territory and says that a government commission will assemble a list of "affiliated" organizations whose activities are not allowed. Lawmakers said the process of banning the UOC would be long and complicated as each UOC parish is an individual legal entity and will have nine months to decide whether it wants to leave the church. Most Ukrainians are part of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a separate church founded in 2019 to be independent of Moscow and recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, widely regarded as the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christianity.
Russia's invasion has already driven hundreds of UOC parishes to switch to the OCU, sometimes causing tensions in rural communities with one church. The poll, conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, found broad support for the law across all regions of Ukraine that remain under Kyiv's control. Even in the more Russophone east, over 70% of respondents supported the ban. Overall, 16% of Ukrainians said they opposed the ban, while another 4% were unsure, with 80% in favor.
Source: reuters.com
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