he following press release from Amsterdam & Partners LLP was circulated to media outlets today:
LONDON, AUGUST 19, 2024 – Earlier this week President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky released a statement on YouTube purporting to indicate that he secured an “endorsement” from the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations in support of Draft Law 8371, which proposes an outright ban of the entire Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).
Zelensky’s endorsement claim is however false and intentionally misleading, says Robert Amsterdam, an international lawyer who represents the UOC. Although President Zelensky indeed held an online meeting with selected members of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, there was no representative of the UOC invited, and as such, the Council is unable to make any such statement endorsing the controversial law.
“According to experts we have spoken with, it is not possible, according to the statutes, for the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations to issue any statement without full consensus of all members, whether they were present at a given meeting or not,” said Robert Amsterdam. “The fact that the Ukrainian government has deployed some linguistic ambiguity to manufacture this disinformation in service of advancing its illegal religious cleansing law should be deeply worrying to everyone who cares about rule of law in Ukraine.”
According to a prominent scholar on this subject consulted by Amsterdam & Partners LLP (who requested anonymity), the meeting featured significant political pressure:
A video released about the meeting with the president. It was a very strange setting that reminded me of the meeting of Putin with his security council before the full-scale invasion, and everybody recited their instructions: “Yes, Mr. President, thank you, Mr. President, very good, Mr. President.”
In a similar way, all the religious leaders present praised the 8371 initiative. But what was striking for me was when Roman Catholic archbishop Kryvytskyi (around minute 12:40) basically said that the UOC never condemned the Russian aggression. I do not know what would be worse: If he was not aware of their statements, or if he was bluntly lying.
Amsterdam reiterates that the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has repeatedly denounced Russia’s war against Ukraine, including as recently as 27 March 2024, when the UOC clearly stated that “calls for the destruction of Ukraine and the justification of a military aggression are inconsistent with the Gospel teaching.”
According to Amsterdam, President Zelensky’s decision to spread disinformation represents a clear breach of trust ahead of the push to advance draft law 8371 this week.
“My question to all supporters of Ukraine is why, if they feel that this law is well reasoned and necessary for national security, why must they continue to lie about it? Why are they lying about the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches, why are they twisting statements from the Orthodox leadership in Turkiye?,” said Mr. Amsterdam. “They cannot truthfully support 8371 based on any factual analysis of this bill – everyone from the United Nations to the Church of England to the Rada’s own legal department has identified very clear violations of international law in this discriminatory bill.”
Amsterdam concludes: “This brazen attempt to outlaw an entire religion will shatter Ukraine’s hopes of ever joining the EU and will place them in international law purgatory – all in the name of short-term nationalist political goals of one extremist faction. It’s a profound disgrace that does not serve the interests of Ukraine.”