The Russians do not even allow Greek Catholics to operate in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Retaliation also forces Orthodox priests under the Moscow Patriarchate to accept Russian citizenship, a paradoxical situation.
Stepan Podolchak served as a priest of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which broke away from the Moscow Patriarchate. He served in the village of Kalanchak. One day, Russian soldiers burst into his house, broke down the door, and took the half-naked priest with a bag over his head to an unknown location. Two days later, they called the priest’s wife to identify the body. According to the local bishop, the priest was shot because he refused to cooperate with the Russians.
Greek Catholic priests and Redemptorists Ivan Levyckyj and Bohdan Heleta worked in Berdyansk, where they organized prayers for peace. The Russians subsequently arrested them and dragged them to prison. The priests were in a cell with seven to eight other prisoners, which was designed for a maximum of two people. They slept on the floor, and water was dripping down the walls.
The priests were loudly blaring Catholic Church Soviet propaganda songs for days. Father Ivan was beaten unconscious twice, and the priests faced threats of 25 years in prison. The reason? Weapons were allegedly found in the Greek Catholic church where they served. Father Bohdan has diabetes, but he was denied medication, which seriously endangered his health and life.
Priests Levyckyj and Heleta also witnessed how the Russians tortured other prisoners. For example, one man was tortured with electric shocks and forced to memorize the Russian anthem. According to them, the people in prison were going crazy, and many were thinking about suicide. According to their words, they survived only thanks to faith and prayer. The monks spent time in Russian captivity from June 2022 to November 2024, when they were released as part of a prisoner exchange.
These and other stories were documented by the Ukrainian NGO Media Initiative for Human Rights in the documentary Controlling Faith by Force, which was released late last year.
By January 2025, it documented the killing of 67 priests and pastors of various Christian churches in the occupied territories of Ukraine and the destruction of almost 650 religious buildings. Other data speak of over 700 destroyed churches, synagogues, and prayer houses.
An icon damaged by shrapnel at the entrance to a church in the eastern Ukrainian village of Bohorodychne, which was occupied by the Russian army. The Russians occupied these buildings, which the Ukrainians later retook. Photo: Franz Neubauer
Ukrainian soldiers inspect the premises of a church in Izyum, which the Russians have turned into a military hospital. Photo: Franz Neubauer
These findings suggest that the Russians are forcing many Christians to join the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and accept Russian citizenship. Those who refuse face persecution. But the Orthodox themselves face these challenges too, even in Russia. It is enough to express the slightest hint of disagreement with the “special military operation.”
The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, led by Patriarch Kirill, operates as part of the propaganda of the “Russian world,” which combines religious narratives with political expansion and serves to legitimize armed aggression against Ukraine.
Russians in the occupied territories are also requiring churches to reregister under Russia’s religious laws, which require church leaders to accept Russian citizenship.
In the Zaporozhye region, the Greek Catholic Church is even banned under occupation (priests are persecuted and imprisoned in the occupied territories), and Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have been banned in Russia since 2017, are considered extremists. There are about 150 of them in Russian prisons.
Patriarch Kirill’s message for the Day of Mercy and the prisoners he refuses to visit
The main target of repression is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has separated from the Moscow Patriarchate. Then there are the Greek Catholics, Protestant churches, Pentecostal movements, and the aforementioned Jehovah’s Witnesses, i.e., all churches except the Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kirill.
Priests of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine face kidnapping, deportation, and torture, or are forced to defect to the Russian Orthodox Church under threat of abuse and confiscation of property.
Priests Khrystofor Khrimlia and Andriy Chuya experienced this firsthand. When they refused to convert to the Russian Orthodox Church, soldiers treated them like prisoners of war. Both were taken to the Russian Federation. They were told that the torture and ill-treatment would only stop if they agreed to convert.
In the village of Bohorodychne in eastern Ukraine, the windows of a destroyed building reveal a damaged church. Photo: John Smith
The village of Bohorodychne in eastern Ukraine has a destroyed church. Photo: John Smith
The paradox, however, is that Orthodox priests under the Moscow Patriarchate also face reprisals.
Kostiantyn Maksymov, who is a priest of this church, refused to accept Russian citizenship and did not agree with the annexation of his diocese by the Russian Church.
He was subsequently detained and, after 21 months in various solitary confinement cells, was unjustly sentenced to 14 years in a maximum-security colony for “espionage.” He is currently imprisoned in the Saratov region of Russia, more than a thousand kilometers from his home.
Slovak priest Peter Krenický, who worked in Melitopol, also experienced the cruelty of the Russians firsthand. The Russians threatened to shoot him, severely beat him, and deport him.
Slovak missionary in Ukraine15 RusslandKrenický, helps and suffers together with believers; Russians beat him and deported him.
Another Greek Catholic priest, Olexandr Bohomaz, remained in the city for some time. The occupiers demanded that he provide information from his confession about who was against Russia and the occupation, but the priest refused. The priest recalled that the Russian soldiers behaved like “masters” at his home, acted very sovereignly, and tried to humiliate him.
The Russians are also liquidating Protestant churches. The occupying power labels them as sects and bearers of a destructive ideology. It justifies their persecution on the grounds of national security and accuses the churches of being agents of the American CIA.
The designation as extremists, in turn, allows the Russian authorities to use repressive legislation to ban the activities of many other churches.
Protestant pastors are being beaten, arrested, and tortured. Gunmen kidnapped Pastor Serhiy Lytovchenko in Horlivka during a church service. In April 2022, Pastor Dmytro Boďa of the Word of Life Church was detained on espionage charges. The occupying power is forcibly closing Protestant prayer houses, confiscating their documentation, keys, and the personal property of believers.
Baptists, PentecostAdventists are the most affected, while the Russians do not allow (Greek) Catholics.lics to operate in the occupied territories.
The American National Catholic Register quotes the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, who says that, for example, not a single CA Catholic priest was left in occupied Mariupol. Out of five million Catholics, they lived in Ukraine. Russia formally banned the Greek Catholic Church and Catholic organizations in the occupied territories.
Russians bombed an Orthodox monastery
However, Russians target sacred buildings, monasteries, and churches, including Orthodox ones.
One of the most recent incidents occurred on Wednesday, January 28, when several rockets hit and destroyed an Orthodox monastery in Odessa . The Dormition Monastery was hit for the third time since the start of the war.
Dozens of Shahid drones struck the monastery, according to Archimandrite (head of the monastery) Isaias. The attack left several injured and caused significant material damage. Some of the monastery buildings are uninhabitable. The monastery, dairy, and courtyard were hit. The greenhouse and heating system were damaged, and all the windows were broken.
In June 2022, Russians carried out an airstrike on a wooden temple on the territory of the Sviatohirsk Lavra, which is considered one of the three holiest sites in Ukraine by Orthodox believers.
In December 2022, in Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, the Russian army destroyed a Roman Catholic church in the city center. The Church of Our Lady, Queen of the Holy Rosary, sustained severe damage to its roof, bell tower, and stained-glass windows.
During Orthodox Easter in 2023, a Russian missile hit a church in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.
Orthodox priests in Russia also face prison for criticizing the war
However, Orthodox clergy in Russia itself who have expressed opposition or hinted at opposition to the war are also being persecuted. Already in the first months of the conflict, there were reports that the Russians were punishing priests who did not support the war.
Since the beginning of the war, over a hundred cases of persecution and persecution of clergy or preachers for their stance on the war have been recorded in Russia. Of these, 79 are Orthodox, seven are Baptists, seven are Pentecostal preachers, and three are Catholics.
At least 19 people were sentenced to prison for their stance on the war. About 40 Orthodox Church clergy members faced ecclesiastical court, and 17 were dismissed from the clergy, while another 14 were suspended.
Another 30 priests left the country and found refuge in the Patriarchate of Constantinople, including those suspended by Moscow. These clergy now serve Russian communities across Europe.
It doesn’t take much to cause problems with war. A 47-year-old Moscow priest, John Koval, knows this. He changed just one word in the obligatory prayer “For the Victory of Holy Russia,” introduced by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, replacing “victory” with “peace.”
His minister reported him to the church authorities. In May 2023, he was quickly stripped of his clerical status and forced to flee Russia within hours. This transformation of liturgical prayer into a political ordeal represents what the cited report calls “a profound distortion of Orthodox canonical tradition.”
Religion News Service reports on two Orthodox seminary graduates, Denis Popovich and Nikita Ivankovich, 28 and 29, respectively, both ethnic Ukrainians, who have been held in a Moscow prison since February of last year, facing terrorism charges in a trumped-up trial that could see them serving decades in prison.
In fact, they were guilty of expressing their opinions about the war on communication apps and in private conversations.
