The following press statement from Robert Amsterdam was issued to global media outlets today:
The Ukrainian Government is making its final preparations to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). As part of these efforts, a delegation of Ukrainian officials visited Türkiye this week for meetings with His All-Holiness Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. The delegation included Viktor Yelensky, the Head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS), and Metropolitan Epifany, the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Both went to Istanbul to legitimise their naked attempts to destroy the UOC.
According to a press release issued by the presidential administration of Ukraine, His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew offered his support for the Ukrainian government’s plans for “spiritual independence”, a euphemism for the state-ordered destruction of a one-thousand-year-old religious denomination. This statement issued by the presidential administration is a lie. It is inconceivable that the bishop who ranks “first among equals” in Eastern Orthodoxy condones what is taking place in Ukraine.
Contrary to the statement issued by the presidential administration, there is no freedom of religion in Ukraine. UOC Priests have been arrested on false charges and held in detention without due process. In a grave violation of the laws of war, detained priests have been offered as barter in exchange for prisoners of war held by the Russian Federation. UOC churches have been illegally seized by state authorities and the OCU. Many of these places of worship have been closed, and their parishioners are forced to worship in private homes, sometimes in the open air. Next week, the Ukrainian parliament will pass legislation that will result in the ban of the UOC, in full violation of the international law on the freedom of religion and belief. This multi-pronged attack on the UOC does not befit a nation seeking to join the EU.
I fail to believe His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew supports this torrid state of affairs. I can only conclude that His All-Holiness has fallen prey to the intrigues of the Ukrainian authorities and has been prevented from learning the truth about religious freedom in Ukraine. Given his signal role in the attack on the UOC, Viktor Yelensky is likely to blame. He has proved to be a biased and injudicious figure, who desires nothing less than the total destruction of the UOC. Indeed, there are even some within the presidential administration who have raised concerns about his behaviour. According to internal documents in my possession, “the style of work of the current Head of the DESS can be characterized as outright indulgence in the interests of the OCU […]. He deliberately manipulates facts, […] and in various places offers mutually contradictory statements that his interlocutor wants to hear, just to get concrete steps from the interlocutor in support of the OCU.” This is not a man that His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew can trust.
His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew is of advanced age, and I have grave fears that he is being held hostage to plans that have spiralled out of control. His decision to grant the OCU a tomos of autocephaly created divisions not just in Ukraine, but in global Orthodoxy too. These splits have since only grown and are far from being healed. If it is true that His All-Holiness intends to provide cover for the Ukrainian government’s attack on the UOC, then he is in grave danger of becoming an accessory to the violation of the freedom of religion in Ukraine. Should he pursue this course, His All-Holiness will sacrifice not just his reputation, but the future unity of Eastern Orthodoxy.
The statement issued this morning in Kyiv is a fabrication, pure and simple.
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