VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Sunday strongly condemned the decision of the Ukraine government to ban the Russia-linked branch of Kyiv’s Orthodox Church.
“Do not touch churches,” the pope said in his weekly prayers, one day after President Zelensky signed the ban into law. “In thinking of the law recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the liberty of those who pray,” the pope said.
Zelensky who held a meeting with the pope in June at the G7 in Italy signed the law Saturday barring the Russian-linked Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
Ukraine has been trying to distance itself from the Russian church since 2014 and the efforts have intensified since Russia’s 2022 war.
Zelensky approved the bill, denounced by Russia, on Kyiv’s Independence Day from the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church officially broke away from the Russian patriarchy in 2022, but Ukrainian officials accuse its clerics of staying loyal to Russia.
Pope Francis said he continued to follow the fighting in Ukraine with sorrow.
