Pope Francis has criticised Ukraine’s ban on the Russian-allied Orthodox Church, a sign of the growing rift between Kiev and the Vatican.
“No Christian church should be abolished, directly or indirectly. The churches should not be touched,” the pope said in his Sunday prayer, condemning a law recently passed by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukraine says the ban is justified because the Moscow Patriarchate supports Russia’s war of aggression.
The pope told tens of thousands of faithful in St. Peter’s Square that “one does no wrong by praying. If someone does something bad to his people, he is guilty. But he cannot have done anything bad by praying.”
Kiev has previously accused the pope of siding with Russia, a charge the Vatican rejects.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has long been a dominant force in Ukraine’s complex church landscape. Until 2022, it belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate, but after the Russian invasion, it officially severed its ties with Moscow and condemned the war.
Despite this, Kiev accuses it of justifying Russian crimes against its own people and spreading Russian propaganda. An estimated 3 million believers are affected by the ban.
