Over 60% of Ukrainians support full ban on Moscow-backed church

This was reported by KIIS Executive Director Anton Hrushetskyi on the Espreso TV channel.

“We asked a monitoring question about the policy towards this church. There were three options, from not interfering and investigating individual offenses, if any, to establishing state control or a complete ban. Currently, over 60% of Ukrainians are in favor of a complete ban on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). Another 20% support the establishment of state supervision and control over it. Only 12% believe that there is no need to interfere in the affairs of this church,” he said.

At least over the past year, the UOC (MP) has failed to prove to Ukrainian citizens that it is Ukrainian and has no ties to Russia, Hrushetskyi said.

“This is not the first time we have conducted this survey. The question is interesting from several perspectives. The first is how Ukrainians generally feel about the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was definitely a church of the Moscow Patriarchate until May 2022. Now they are demanding that this be challenged, but the perception does not change. Currently, 82% of Ukrainians do not trust the UOC (MP). Although it may maintain control over most parishes, the vast majority of Ukrainians do not trust it. Only up to 10% of Ukrainians identify themselves with the UOC (MP0. Some Western commentators see this data as falsified. They say that this is an attempt to incite violence against the UOC (MP) parishioners, but in fact it is not. Most people are not even complaining about the local priests, but about the supreme leadership of this church, which is not capable of reform,” said the KIIS executive director.

• On May 9, the Security Service of Ukraine served a notice of suspicion in absentia to Nazar Shkila, a cleric of the UOC (MP) who supported the accession of Kherson region to Russia and painted the entrance stele in the Russian “tricolor.”