Once Zelensky signs the bill, there will be thirty days before the State Ethnopolitics Service of Ukraine will be permitted to dig into religious organizations in the nation to uncover their potential affiliation with the Russian church.
"If at least one of the 5 legally defined signs of a religious organization’s connection with the Russian Orthodox Church is discovered, such an organization will receive an order to eliminate this connection within 30 days," said Ukrainian MP Volodymyr Viatrovych of the European Solidarity Party.
"If the connection with Moscow is not severed, the state will apply to the court for a ban on such an organization. Legal proceedings for the ban will begin 9 months after the publication of the law," he continued.
The bill is meant to prevent Christian religious groups that have Russian roots from operating in Ukraine, including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Ukrainian MP Roman Lozynskyi said in a post on Facebook "Historic voting. Today we have embarked on the inevitable path of cleansing from the inside of the Kremlin’s agent network, which for decades hid behind the mask of a religious organization."
Politico reports that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with ties to Russia, is "locked in a battle over legitimacy" with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is perceived as being loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church, though the group said that they had distanced themselves from Patriarch Kirill in 2022, who said he was in favor of Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Despite this, it was reported that the "priests and financial backers were caught aiding the Russian army in Ukraine. It also hired top lobbyists in the U.S. to claim the upcoming ban amounted to religious persecution and called to stall aid to Ukraine until it stops 'persecuting' Christians."
"The Moscow Patriarchate justifies pogroms and restrictions on religious freedom, torture and murders of priests and pastors, and cynically tramples on God’s instructions and basic norms of universal morality," the Ukrainian Council of Churches said in a statement.
