On March 14, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sent letters to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, President of the UN General Assembly Csaba Korosi, OSCE Chairman-in-Office Bujar Osmani and OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid on the glaring violations of universal human and constitutional rights of Orthodox believers in Ukraine. These violations stem from the Kiev regime’s repressive policy aimed at destroying the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). Mr Lavrov cites numerous instances of harassment of the canonical Orthodox Church: the mass seizure of UOC churches and the forced illegal elimination of their communities under the pretext of ostensibly voluntary transfer to another jurisdiction; so-called restrictive measures (sanctions) against bishops of the canonical Orthodox Church; stripping a number of its bishops of Ukrainian citizenship and psychological and physical intimidation of clergy and parishioners. Mr Lavrov considers the actions of the Ukrainian authorities to be a flagrant violation of the rights of Orthodox Christians and discrimination against them. These actions violate a number of universally recognised international legal documents – the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, to name a few. Mr Lavrov believes that the recent decision by the Kiev authorities to expel monks from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra as a repressive attempt to deprive the canonical Orthodox Church of one of its main shrines under a far-fetched pretext. In effect, this is the peak of the repression directed against the canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
The Foreign Minister of Russia urged the international leaders to offer a principled assessment of the illegal actions by the Ukrainian regime as regards the UOC. They should demand that Kiev stop its arbitrary treatment and repression of the canonical Orthodox Church, strictly observe its commitments under universally recognised international documents and prevent the forced eviction of monks from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
