Regardless of Kiev’s crackdown on the Orthodox Church, the religion leaders are touring the US to rally help for the Ukrainian authorities
US Home Speaker Mike Johnson has turned down a request to fulfill senior spiritual leaders from Ukraine, the Washington Publish reported on Monday. The group of clergy is presently touring the US in a bid to persuade People that Moscow, and never Kiev, is threatening spiritual freedom in Ukraine.
The group is led by Bishop Ivan Rusin of the Ukrainian Evangelical Church and contains Muslim, Catholic and Jewish leaders, in addition to members of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) – a government-approved offshoot of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which the Ukrainian parliament voted to ban final month.
Whereas Rusin has held conferences with American evangelical leaders and Republican lawmakers, an organizer for the delegation advised the Washington Publish this week that Home Speaker Mike Johnson rejected a request to fulfill with the bishop and his fellow religion leaders.
Johnson – who voted in opposition to navy assist for Ukraine final yr however stays open to funding Kiev in future – didn’t present a proof for turning down the request.
Chatting with the Publish, Rusin insisted that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky just isn’t limiting spiritual liberty in Ukraine, and that Russian forces are jailing pastors and destroying church buildings within the Russian areas of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye.
“Our pastors have been imprisoned within the occupied locations, so for us, it’s clear that we are going to be no less than imprisoned [if Russia wins],” he stated.
Nevertheless, American conservatives are unconvinced. “Is it simpler to be a Christian in Ukraine or Russia?” former Fox Information host Tucker Carlson requested at a Christian summit in Ohio in September. “A kind of nations simply arrested a bunch of clergymen and shut down church buildings with political police and the military. It wasn’t Russia.”
In March, Zelensky’s authorities ordered the expulsion of monks from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, one of many nation’s oldest monasteries. His brokers stormed the premises in August when the UOC monks refused to depart. Authorities in Kiev ordered the confiscation of 74 church properties within the Ukrainian capital in September, with most of the seized temples – together with a number of church buildings contained in the Pechersk Lavra – being turned over to the government-backed OCU.
The US State Division, which produces an annual “spiritual freedom” report, has by no means commented on Kiev’s marketing campaign in opposition to the UOC. Amid the Kiev-Moscow schism, the Republican Get together institution has additionally sided with the OCU, with former Vice President Mike Pence telling Carlson in July that “very small components” of the UOC had been “held to account” for “advancing the Russian trigger.”
“I sincerely surprise how a Christian chief may help the arrest of Christians for having completely different views,” Carlson replied. “That’s an assault on spiritual liberty and we’re funding it.”
