Why the Ukraine Schism Matters

“We support all Ukrainians’ ability to worship as they choose. Tolerance and restraint are key to a peaceful transition period so that people with different religious affiliations can live and prosper together.” — U.S. Embassy in Kiev, 15 December 2018

---

I wanted to keep my Substack a politics-free zone. I spent over ten years trying to hack it as a political journalist, and it’s not my shtick. There are lots of people who do a much better job than I do. Also, the older I get, the less I care about that stuff.

Then I got a couple of phone calls from a couple of old friends. One belongs to the U.S. “intelligence community”; the other works for a major military contractor. They don’t know each other. Last year, both of them were approached by the folks who handle their security clearance. Both were asked about me by name. Both were grilled about any connection I may have to the Russian government.

I have no idea why anyone would think I work for the Kremlin. The only Russians I’ve met are the babushkas at my parish, and they all hate Putin. (Hence why they’re here and not back in Russia.) I can only assume it’s because I wrote a couple of articles for The American Conservative challenging the prevailing narrative on the War in Ukraine, particularly as it relates to the schism in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

It may seem odd that the U.S. government would pick on a small fry like me. If so, you have no idea how important the Ukrainian schism is for Washington’s foreign-policy goals.

For example, it’s now being reported that USAID played a significant role in the founding of the schismatic, state-backed Orthodox Church in Ukraine (OCU), which split from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). As one commentator put it, “The billions we as Americans send to Ukraine go to persecute Christians.”

What follows is an article I wrote some months ago. I sent it to a number of publications. None of them would publish it. Presumably, they didn’t want to be accused of “parroting Kremlin talking-points.” Yet, clearly, this isn’t a topic we can ignore.

I am not pro-Russia. I don’t care about Russia one way or the other. I care about America. And I don’t want American soldiers to die in a war with a country that poses no threat to the United States whatsoever. I certainly don’t want U.S. tax dollars being spent to persecute my fellow Orthodox Christians.

So, without further ado, here’s a brief article I wrote on the origins of the Ukrainian schism, which I’ve updated to include the most recent information. Hopefully it does some good.

---

Orthodox Christianity first came to the region in the late 10th century. It became the official religion of the Slavs by decree of St. Vladimir the Great. Vladimir’s political title was Grand Prince of Kiev. The trident symbol one finds on the Coat of Arms of Ukraine is actually the seal of the House of Rurikids, to which Vladimir belonged.

Back then, Vladimir’s nation was known as Kievan Rus, because the Rus people had their capital in Kiev. Likewise, the first head of the Orthodox Church in Vladimir’s lands was known as the Bishop of Kiev.

Gradually, Moscow replaced Kiev as the political and religious capital of Rus. Russia and Ukraine also become ethnically and culturally distinct. However, they generally remained united both politically and religiously: the Russian Empire was comprised of dozens of different ethnic groups. Also, the term Russian Orthodox Church didn’t mean, “The Orthodox Church for ethnic Russians.” It meant, “The Orthodox Church within the Russian Empire.” It referred to the Church’s territory, not its membership.

(We may note that the official name of the Orthodox Diocese of Alaska is the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Sitka and Alaska. The overwhelming majority of Orthodox Alaskans belong to the Aleut nation; they have referred to themselves as “Russian Orthodox” since the first missionaries brought the Faith to their ancestors in the 18^th century. Again, the name Russian has nothing to do with ethnicity.)

In the 19th century, some Orthodox Christians in Ukraine began to feel that they ought to have their own national church—one that had no ties to the Patriarch of Moscow whatsoever. A few nationalists broke with the canonical (“official”) Ukrainian Orthodox Church and founded their own sects. The Moscow Patriarchate didn’t officially respond to these demands, however, until 1990, when it granted autonomy to the UOC.

Now, it’s true: Moscow did not grant the UOC autocephaly, or total independence. But the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s ties to the Russian Orthodox Church are purely formal and symbolic. They are maintained only to emphasize the two churches’ common origin. The Moscow Patriarchate has no involvement in the government of the UOC whatsoever.

The current rival to the UOC is the schismatic, state-backed Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which was formed in 2019. Actually, the OCU was formed as a merger of two sects which broke away from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). These sects were the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, which broke away in 1992, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which separated itself most recently in 1989.

The merger of these two churches was organized by then-Prime Minister Petro Poroshenko. Poroshenko rose to power in 2014 as a result of the CIA-backed “Maiden Uprising” in Ukraine, which saw the ousting of Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych.

It’s worth noting that, in the years leading up to the 2019 “unification council,” both Joseph Biden and John McCain—among other Washington elites—were on the record as supporting an “independent” Orthodox Church in the Republic of Ukraine.

Sure enough, the OCU’s declaration of independence was greeted with jubilation by the U.S. intelligence community. Ten days after Poroshenko’s council, then-U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo issued the following statement:

The January 6th announcement of autocephaly for an independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine marks a historic achievement as Ukraine seeks to chart its own future. On this momentous occasion, the United States reiterates its unwavering support for a sovereign, independent Ukraine.

Incidentally, 2019 is the same year that Zelensky came to power. Just months after his election, a group called the Ukraine Crisis Media Center—which was funded by USAID—“warned” Zelensky that any failure to promote the OCU and to combat the UOC “will inevitably lead to political instability.” The subtext was crystal clear: If Zelensky failed support the schismatic church and suppress the canonical church, he too would fall victim to regime change, just like Yanukovych.

Since 2022, the Ukrainian government has used Russia’s “special military operation” as an excuse to intensify its persecution of the UOC, which it has since rebranded as the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.” Hundreds of church buildings have been seized by police officers acting on the Zelensky Administration’s orders. Bishops have been imprisoned. Priests have been dragged out into the streets and beaten nearly to death. Liturgies and funerals have been disrupted by mobs Monks are being evicted from their monasteries, with these historic properties being handed over to the OCU.

It’s hard for Western readers to imagine just how abhorrent our policy on the Ukrainian Church truly is. The most obvious comparison would be to the schism within the Catholic Church in China. As many of you know, China’s Catholic population is divided between the state-backed “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association” and the authentic “Underground Church.” The CCPA is, of course, a purely political organization. It is obedient to the regime and promotes the ruling ideology in a Christian disguise. The Underground Church, meanwhile, remains faithful to the official Catholic hierarchy, preaching the unadulterated Catholic faith.

The same is true of the schism in Ukraine. The Orthodox Church in Ukraine is to the CCPA as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is to the Underground Church.

The persecution of the UOC came to a head in August of 2024, when Zelensky banned the canonical Church entirely. His defenders claim that “Russian-backed” clergy were serving as agents of the Kremlin; and besides, at this point, they only represent about four percent of the population.

One would think that, regardless of the UOC’s size, a great champion of freedom like Vladimir Zelensky would refrain from banning any religious organization, particularly since Ukrainian intelligence services have never produced a shred of evidence that the UOC is linked to the Kremlin.

(On the contrary: thousands upon thousands of UOC members have died fighting in the Ukrainian Armed Forces against Russia. This has not even prevented the Ukrainian Armed Forces for disrupting their funerals merely because they are being performed by UOC clergy.)

Even if we trust the Ukrainian government’s statistics, it’s worth noting that the UOC is so small precisely because it was persecuted by Zelensy and his predecessors. It’s believed that, in 2008, about half of all Ukrainians belonged to the canonical church. We’re supposed to believe that 92 percent of its members simply walked away in fifteen years, when not a shred of evidence has been presented to substantiate Kiev’s claim that UOC leaders are collaborating with Moscow?

Even then, the claim that the OCU is larger than the UOC is based on inaccurate—and perhaps deliberately misleading—surveys of the Ukrianian public. According to research published by the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University, the two churches are roughly the same size. The UOC may even be the larger of the two. This, despite a decade of intensifying persecution by the Ukrainian government and nationalist mobs.

It’s absolutely true that Russian troops have persecuted Protestants and Eastern Catholics in territories which they have seized. Yet it should be noted that we, the American people, have no influence over the government in Moscow. (Of course, we could include a religious-freedom clause in any peace agreement negotiated with the Kremlin.)

We do exercise a huge amount of influence over the government in Kiev, albeit indirectly. If they did more to highlight the atrocities being committed by our Ukrainian “allies” against their own people, Washington may have encouraged Zelensky to adopt a more tolerant policy.

Then again, America’s intelligence community—and its political operatives, like President Biden—have been working for years to achieve precisely this result. The suppression of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the erection of a state-backed “national church” has been a major U.S. foreign policy goal for at least a decade.

The operation in Ukraine is part and parcel of the intelligence community’s infiltration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. I wrote about this at length in my article “The CIA’s Man in Constantinople”. It explains why the current Ecumenical Patriarch, His All-Holiness Bartholomew I, issued a tomos of autocephaly for the schismatic OCU, despite his obvious lack of any canonical authority over Ukraine. Bartholomew’s misconduct has been noted by his own bishops, including the great Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, of blessed memory.

I don’t know if this will change under President Trump. Even if it does, I doubt that religious freedom in Ukraine and Russia will be a high priority. If the President can do anything to relieve the suffering of Ukraine’s Orthodox faithful, however, he will by no means lose his reward.