Ukraine's Christians Vs. Putin's Church
Ukraine is 85% Christian, but it is home to about every faith on the planet. Of all those faiths, only one collaborates with the Russians. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church that reports to Moscow.
Russia spends as much as $2.4 billion annually on propaganda worldwide.
Conservatives are rightly tired of hearing about Russian propaganda. The Democrats politicized it. I spend all day every day pushing back against false Russian narratives, but breaking through to conservatives can be difficult. “Yeah, like the Steele dossier?” they say.
Unlike the Steele dossier, Russian influence in America is in both conservative and liberal circles is real.
One of the most pervasive false Russian narratives (and one of the easiest to trace back to Russian money) is that Ukraine persecutes Christians.
This lie is a smokescreen to cover up the horrors Putin has perpetrated against Ukrainian Christians. He has destroyed more than 600 churches in Ukraine. He has shut down every church in occupied Ukraine he doesn’t control and made holding a Bible study in one’s home a crime punishable by years in prison.
Our team at A Faith Under Siege put together this explainer video together that will tell you everything you need to know about Christian persecution in Ukraine in five minutes, forty-five seconds.
If you want to dig deeper, read on.
In November 2022, I met Viktor, a believer who had been tortured by the Russians for being an evangelical Christian. Viktor was the first of many Ukrainian Christians I would meet who had suffered terribly under Russian occupation. Shortly after meeting Viktor, I heard Tucker Carlson say that Ukraine is persecuting Christians, which was wildly at odds with what I was seeing on the ground.
I have spent the last few years trying to get the truth out.
Only One Church is a Problem in Ukraine - the Church that Reports to Moscow
Ukraine is home to about every faith you can find on the planet. The country is 85% Christian from nearly every denomination - two Orthodox churches, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, Baptists, Pentecostals, LDS, Lutherans, Presbyterians and more. Jewish communities flourished in southern and eastern Ukraine until the Russians invaded and chased them out. Ukraine is also home to Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and a host of other non-Western religions.
Only one church - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - has scores of clergy on trial and in the justice system for espionage-related activity. No other clergy from any church, mosque or temple are on trial in Ukraine. This one church is considered such a serious security threat to Ukraine that eighty-five percent of Ukrainians want the government to do something about it.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the branch Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine and reports to the Russian Orthodox Patriarch in Moscow. It is also known as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarch (UOC-MP).
Half a dozen other European countries also see their local branches of the Russian Orthodox Church as a security threat within their borders.
The Russian Orthodox Church is an Arm of the Kremlin
The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church - the Russian Orthodox equivalent of a pope - is Patriarch Kirill. Like Vladimir Putin, Kirill was a KGB agent during the cold war.
Kirill has declared a Holy War on Ukraine and the West. If you search Google images for Russian Orthodox priests blessing tanks, you will see dozens of photos of men in black robes with beards sprinkling holy water on weapons of war - including nuclear weapons. The Russian Orthodox Church even has a cathedral in the Lubyanka, the headquarters for the FSB, the Russian successor agency to the KGB.
Kirill has told his followers that if they die fighting in Ukraine, all their sins will be washed away. He stopped short of promising 72 virgins, but he is using the same strategy radical Islamists use to recruit young men to be suicide bombers. As if in keeping with Kirill’s faith, Putin has said that the Orthodox faith is closer to Islam than Roman Catholicism.
Putin has long had a strange fascination with Islam. He has also said that Orthodox Christianity and Islam share the same values. The four official faiths of Russia are Orthodoxy Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism. Neither Protestants nor Catholics made the cut. Perhaps his fascination is political. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in Russia.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church Reports to Moscow Patriarch Kirill
Those who spread the false narrative of UOC-MP persecution will tell you that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate is a thousand years old. But in reality, it was formed in 1990 as the branch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. As such, the church’s clergy report to Kirill, the Russian Orthodox patriarch in Moscow.
In May 2022, three months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the UOC-MP posted on Facebook that they “disagree” with Patriarch Kirill on the war and declared their independence. However, the Orthodox faith has a well-defined process to achieve “autocephaly” - independence - and, oddly enough, none of it involves a Facebook post. The UOC-MP has undertaken none of the formal steps required for autocephaly.
Evidence abounds that UOC - MP is still active with the Russian Orthodox Church.
The most damning recent development is that Putin has made security for the subsidiary of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine a major point in the peace negotiations.
If the UOC-MP has truly declared independence from Moscow, why does Putin care about the church? Vladimir Putin is not known for dealing well with rejection. The word “defenestration” has gained new popularity in recent years because Putin throws people out of windows for betraying him.
As documented in our film A Faith Under Siege, Putin cares little for Christians, having destroyed more than 600 churches in Ukraine and killed some seventy pastors and priests since the beginning of the war.
Maybe Kirill got the idea for Putin to include the UOC-MP in peace negotiations from the seven supposedly independent bishops of the UOC-MP who attended the 16th anniversary celebration of Patriarch Kirill’s enthronement in Moscow in February of this year.
The UOC-MP collaboration with Russia is well-organized. The Orthodox church gave birth to the word “byzantine,” now used to describe a system involving a great deal of administrative detail. The 2023 annual calendar for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church exemplifies this. Printed on September 9, 2022, a little more than three months after the UOC-MP Facebook post declaring independence, dozens of entries in the phone directory have Russian numbers and email addresses.
UOC-MP collaboration with the Russian military has just not one, but two official channels, according to the phone directory. The red circled entry on the bottom left photo indicates you can contact “Diocesan Office for Relations with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement” by emailing a .ru Russian email address that is banned in Ukraine. The address for the office is in Russian occupied Crimea. The bottom right red circled entry shows you can contact Mykolai Zyn’kov at the “Diocesan Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces” at his +7 telephone number. +7 is the country code for Russia.
Why are two agencies listed for cooperation between the UOC-MP and the Russian armed forces? Well, apparently there is a lot of demand.
UOC-MP Clergy are Harming Ukrainians
In 2022, Bucha became synonymous with slaughter. More than 500 Ukrainian civilians were buried in a mass grave in this affluent Kyiv suburb with their hands zip-tied behind their backs and signs of torture on their bodies. Some of them are there because a Ukrainian Orthodox priest reportedly led the invading Russian soldiers to the homes of those most likely to oppose them.
One UOC-MP priest reportedly handed out pro-Russian leaflets and charged his followers to rise up and change Ukraine’s borders. Another priest in Donetsk is on trial for giving Ukrainian troop locations to the Russians. As is another in Luhansk. And yet another in Kharkiv.
A well-documented case of collaboration with which I am most familiar is from Izium. The Russians occupied this small town of about 45,000 in eastern Ukraine for about seven months. I first went to Izium in October of 2022, about three weeks after it had been liberated, to work with Ukrainian war crimes investigators. What I saw was horrific.
Some 1000 civilian residents of Izium are buried in several mass graves. The retreating Russians had left booby-traps in children’s toys. The Baptist church was left with only three walls standing. Almost every building in Izyum was damaged or destroyed. The local Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate emerged almost unscathed.
Google Maps shows that the New Life Baptist Church, (the bullet-riddled sign says House of Prayer Evangelical Christian Baptists) is a two-minute walk from the Exaltation of the Cross Church, a church of the UOC-MP.
You can see for yourself the difference in conditions between the Baptist church and the UOC-MP church, both in the right column above, 120m apart.
We interviewed Pastor Oleksandr of the New Life Baptist Church for A Faith Under Siege. He told of believers hiding in the church basement while the Russians shelled it. As their church burned, they couldn’t emerge for several days because of the heat from the fire above.
While Baptists were hiding, the former Metropolitan (senior bishop) of Izium Diocese of the UOC-MP, Yelisey Ivanov, collaborated with the Russians. Izium residents being shelled, tortured and buried in mass graves and Ivanov blessed their activities and preached pro-Russian narratives to his parishioners. Metropolitan Ivanov fled to Russia when the Ukrainian troops liberated Izium.
For reasons like these, 85% of Ukrainians want government intervention into the affairs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that reports to Moscow - 66% want the church banned outright.
The opposition is getting larger because espionage is still being conducted in UOC-MP churches. In July of this year, the 22-year-old daughter of a UOC-MP church rector was arrested in hotly-contested Pokrovsk for tracking Ukrainian troop movements with a camera she installed in the church dome.
The UOC-MP has Lost Almost All Parishioners
After the fall of the Soviet Union, nearly all of Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians (again, this is an 85% Christian country) would have said they were part of the branch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The most recent polling from July of this year shows that only 4% of Ukrainians identify with the UOC-MP.
The Ukraine Freedom Project polled Ukrainians in May of last year to find out why Ukrainians had left the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate.
The data shows that 27% (more than 10 million Ukrainians) said they were once members but had left the UOC-MP. We then asked that 27% why they had left, allowing them to choose up to three options.
The largest numbers in the above table involve the UOC-MP being too pro-Russian.
36% say they changed churches because the UOC had become too pro-Russian, even in the South and the East, the Russian-speaking areas Putin came to “liberate.”
28% say they liked their local parish but felt they had to leave because of the church’s ties to Moscow.
14% simply wanted to report to a patriarch in their own country.
Key point: almost nobody reports being pressured to leave the UOC-MP.
Of most concern is the 8% of those who left the UOC-MP who report having heard their clergy say something against Ukraine or seen the clergy do something to help the Russian war effort. That implies up to three quarters of a million espionage-related incidents by the UOC-MP clergy that have gone unreported.
The data backs up what we are seeing on the ground. I have been to several formerly occupied areas and heard many undocumented anecdotes of clergy cooperating with Russian soldiers.
Demand for an Independent Orthodox Church
After the 2014 invasion of Donbas, where Ukrainians saw reports of UOC-MP priests sheltering Russian officers in their monastery and blessing the leaders of the breakaway Luhansk Republic, membership in the Moscow-backed church dropped.
At the same time, membership in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine that reports to the patriarchate in Kyiv (OCU-KP) surged. An Orthodox Church with patriarchate in Kyiv was first established in 988, and over the centuries has been absorbed by the Russian Orthodox Church and left the Russian Orthodox Church. The OCU-KP was established in 1990, around the same time as the UOC-MP. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine - Kyiv Patriarchate was recognized by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, first among equals in the Orthodox Church, in 2019.
Multiple Orthodox churches can be confusing. The key thing to remember is that “KP” is the church where clergy report to a patriarch in Kyiv. “MP” is a church that reports to the patriarch in Moscow, and that patriarch has declared a Holy War on Ukraine and the West.
2015 polling from the International Republican Institute (IRI) shows some 33% of Ukrainians identified with the OCU-KP while only 24% identified with the UOC-MP.
By July 2025, 49% of Ukrainians identified with the home-grown Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with only 4% identifying with the Moscow church, the UOC-MP, according to IRI polling.
UOC-MP: Lots of Empty Buildings & Time for Mischief
Those spreading the false UOC-MP narrative will tell you that the Ukrainian church that reports to Moscow is the largest church in Ukraine. As the polling above shows, the UOC-MP is shedding parishioners in droves and the OCU-KP is the larger church by far.
Their claim may stem from number of parishes for the OCU-MP. Some 8,193 churches of the UOC-MP operate in Ukraine. The number was once more than 10,000, but UOC-MP parishes, like Ukrainians, are changing to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which reports to a Patriarch in Kyiv.
With 8,193 churches, a similar number of clergy and a declining number of parishioners, this is a lot of clergy reporting to Kirill who have a lot of time on their hands to cause mischief in Ukraine.
Clergy Are Leaving UOC-MP As Well
Since 2019, some 1900 UOC-MP parishes and their clergy have made the switch to OCU-KP.
With millions of parishioners and thousands of clergy leaving the church over a period of more than a decade, this leaves only the clergy most dedicated to following Kirll in the UOC-MP.
We spoke to a priest in a village outside of Kyiv, Father Ioann, who was part of the UOC-MP when the Russians invaded. He lived under occupation for several weeks, praying for the Ukrainian army to liberate them.
When the invading Russians approached his village, they shelled the church. Four days later, fifteen drunken Russian soldiers invaded Father Ioann’s church and put a gun to his head just for fun. The soldiers put a sniper and an artillery spotter in the bell tower and used the vantage point to kill civilians. The church was rendered unusable.
After his prayers for liberation were answered, Father Ioann asked one of his UOC-MP colleagues if he would share his church building. The UOC-MP priest told him only if he would pray for the health of Patriarch Kirill. After enduring weeks of abuse from the Russians, he had little interest in engaging in ritual prayer honoring Kirill. His UOC-MP colleague said “Brother, Kirill is our salvation.”
Father Ioann switched to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine that reports to the patriarch in Kyiv.
While not all UOC-MP clergy are bad actors, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is part of a well-organized effort, driven by Moscow to cause chaos and sow disruption in Ukraine. And this organized effort is taking place across Europe.
Other Countries are Taking Action Against Russian Churches
Ukraine isn’t the only country taking action against the branch of the Russian Orthodox Church in their country.
Estonia, a country with two Orthodox churches and a large Russian minority, has required the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (EOCMP) to break administrative and ecclesiastical ties with Moscow. EOCMP Metropolitan Eugeni, a Russian citizen, was unable to clearly articulate his opposition to the war in Ukraine in a TV interview. Similarly, his response to Patriarch Kirill’s pronouncement of sins of soldiers dying in Ukraine being washed away was deemed insufficiently forceful for the small country that borders Russia. Estonians felt this perceived support for Russia and its military operations posed a security risk. In 2024, the Estonian government deported Metropolitan Eugeni.
In Czechia, the government similarly expelled the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. Archpriest Nikolai Lischenyuk, also a Russian citizen, was deported after Czech security services claimed he was “creating an influence structure with the support of Russian state authorities and could threaten the security of the state.”
Finland acted early against the Orthodox Church of the Dormition of the Holy Mother of God, which reported to Moscow. The Russian church was located near Pansio naval base, home to Finland’s coastal fleet and deemed a national security threat. The church was shuttered by the Finnish government.
Swedish intelligence services have described the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate “as a platform for intelligence-gathering and other activities threatening national security.” A new Russian Orthodox Church with an exceptionally tall spire near a key dual use military/commercial airport and an important logistics corridor - an area with barely any Russians - has drawn scrutiny from Swedish officials.
Latvia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria have also acted against their Russian Orthodox churches that report to Moscow. Norway and the Netherlands are monitoring Russian Orthodox churches located in key national security areas.
Russian Money is Behind the Message
Bob Amsterdam is a Canadian attorney who has appeared on Tucker Carlson and elsewhere to promote the false narrative of the UOC-MP’s persecution in Ukraine. On August 23 of last year, Amsterdam & Partners issued a press release on their website announcing their retainer by Vadym Novynskyi.
Novynskyi is a Russian oligarch granted Ukrainian citizenship in May 2012 by pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich. Yanukovich also gave Novynzkyi a seat in the Ukrainian parliament. Among Ukrainian parliamentary insiders, Novynskyi is known as “Putin’s Whip” for his role in championing pro-Russia legislation.
Amsterdam will tell you that the UOC-MP is independent from the Russian Orthodox Church.
The man paying him is currently a deacon in the Russian Orthodox Church in Zurich.
Also worth noting that Amsterdam pays a former Democratic Congressman at Nelson Mullins, South Carolina’s largest law firm, some $400k per year to spread his false narrative on Capitol Hill.
Russia is Torturing and Murdering Ukrainian Believers
The narrative of UOC-MP persecution covers up the fact that Vladimir Putin has shut down every church in occupied Ukraine he does not control and made it a crime punishable by years in prison to hold a Bible study in one’s home. Our film, A Faith Under Siege, documents the stories of Ukrainian Christians who have been tortured or murdered for their faith.
Last fall, we took a documentary film team on two 1500-mile trips around the Ukrainian front. When we filmed A Faith Under Siege, Putin’s forces had murdered 47 pastors and priests. Current reports suggest the number of faith leaders killed is closer to 70.
Not a single Catholic priest is left in occupied Ukraine. Russians destroyed the synagogue in Mariupol and looted ancient Torah manuscripts from a local museum. One LDS meeting house in occupied Ukraine was turned into a “Russian House.”
This is the truth that is not getting out. As we tell it, powerful forces are arrayed against us to suppress the first century type horrors endured by Ukraine’s modern-day Christian martyrs… martyrs of virtually all faiths.
Watch A Faith Under Siege and learn the truth. Tell your friends.
Steven Moore is a former chief of staff to a Republican member of Congress who went to Ukraine on day 5 of the war to help. He is one of the few people who have been to the Ukrainian front and to the floor of the House of Representatives. His not-for-profit organization, the Ukraine Freedom Project, is dedicated to getting accurate, first-hand, data-driven information from Ukraine to policymakers and opinion leaders in the USA.