Victor Yelenskyy
All states of the world have in place a policy regarding religion and associations that citizens set up based on this religion's ground.
The atheistic government of China and
theocratic government of Iran, the mighty United States and tiny Andorra
– just every one of them.
In Ukraine, such a policy, as well as
the state body to implement this policy are provided for by law. There
have also been repeated attempts to formulate the principles for such a
policy. In the case of democracies, it obviously needs to be a
concentrated managerial activity aimed at full implementation of the
Ukrainian law on freedom of conscience, granting religious organizations
full capacity to exercise the essential functions inherent in the
spiritual, social, caritative, educational, cultural sectors, promoting
the Church as an institution in the consolidation of society,
strengthening its morals and also activities in defending the interests
of the country in the international arena.
Finally, in recent years, a significant
and sometimes the most significant aspect of this policy of all Western
democracies is constituted by what is called securitization of
religion. We are referring to actions (sometimes – extraordinary
actions, associated with the increased control by law enforcement
agencies) aimed at eliminating, or, at least, neutralizing threats to
lives and freedom of citizens, resulting from the abuse of religion by
state actors, quasi-state and non-state actors.
To understand how
successful/unsuccessful the policy of the Ukrainian state in the
designated area has been in recent years, we must refer to objective
indicators: changes in the legislative and regulatory framework, their
modification and implementation; sociological research; international
ratings; assessments of state and non-state reports on monitoring
freedom of religion and belief.
For the sake of justice, let me note
that the last years did not represent a leap from total darkness into
the Realm of Justice. Therefore, it is crucial that during the years of
Independence, Ukraine has occupied a decent position in the world
rankings of religious freedom, and religious pluralism, while high
competition between the centers of religious power undermined Yanukovych
team's plans to plow the religious landscape of the country. However,
it was throughout 2014-2019 that all the requests for a worthy presence
of religious institutions in the public sector, which were put forward
by the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and religious organizations to
governments, Presidents and the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament)
for almost a quarter of a century, have been realized. Let me remind
that during this time laws and regulations have been passed, which made
possible the military chaplaincy and chaplaincy in the penitentiary
institutions; the founding by religious organizations of educational
institutions – from universities to kindergartens; licensing of
theological educational institutions; recognition for clearly defined
terms of their diplomas and defended dissertations; in a hundred years,
Theology retuned back to national universities; religious communities
got the opportunity to change their jurisdiction without hindrance in
accordance with the international understanding of freedom of religion;
the layers, which complicated the activities of religious associations
(e.g., the notorious double registration) have been removed. Moreover,
during the war, the state not only provided religious organizations with
financial relief but also confirmed the right of their members to
non-military (alternative) service.
A truly important breakthrough in the field of religious freedom was the recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as the 15th
Autocephalous Church of the Orthodox Plenitude by the Ecumenical
Patriarchate. This removed the burden from the conscience of a large
number of Orthodox believers in Ukraine, who were branded as “devoid of
grace”, non-canonical and created further conditions for the withdrawal
of the entire Orthodox community from the control of the religious
center, which “by word and deed proved its dedication to the destruction
of Ukrainian statehood.”
From 2014, the international ratings of
religious freedom have been “measuring” it for Ukraine without Crimea
(with the emphasis that this does not mean non-recognition of the
Peninsula as part of Ukrainian territory), but with the occupied part of
Donbass (again, stipulating that the Ukrainian state can not be
responsible for the brutal violations of religious freedoms there).
Specifically, the most authoritative rating of “government restrictions
on religion” drawn up by Pew Research Center, defines these restrictions
for Ukraine as ‘moderate’ and less tangible than in European countries
such as Spain, Austria, Greece, Denmark, Romania, Bulgaria, France, not
to mention Moldova and, especially, Belarus.
The latest rating also records an
improvement in the rating of "governmental restrictions on religion" for
Ukraine from 4.2 to 3.8 (for comparison-the worst among European
countries is in Russia - 8.1, the best is 0.6 in San Marino, Belgium has
3.8 as well).
Among the sociological studies, it is
worth to refer to the surveys by the Razumkov Center, which measures the
religiosity of Ukrainians and their perception of state policy in the
field of religion systematically, since 2000. Thus, in 2013, the
statement “Ukraine maintains complete freedom of conscience and equality
of religions before the law” was supported (in full or in part) by 65%
of respondents and not supported by 21%. In 2018, 70% agreed with this
statement, while 16% disagreed.
President Zelensky outlined the
priorities of his religious policy in quite a lapidary manner: "the
government should not interfere in church affairs, and I will protect
the independence of the Church." It's hard to disagree. However, the
Russian authorities do not refuse to interfere in church affairs – in
the Ukrainian church affairs, too, doing it boldly, severely
and on a large scale. Putin's convening of a meeting of the Security
Council on Ukrainian autocephaly, the Chairman of the State Duma
Committee, which bombarded Orthodox capitals requiring to ‘torpedo the
Ukrainian scenario’, Russian hackers who tried to hack the e-mail boxes
of the Constantinople hierarchs settling the Ukrainian issue, Russian
diplomats who were expelled last year from Greece for the intention to
bribe the metropolitans and so on constitute only the tip of the
iceberg. At its foot is a whole army of diplomats, intelligence
officers, counterintelligence agents under cover and without it,
powerful and extensive propaganda networks, oligarchs and
semi-oligarchs, who make multi-million dollar donations to the
“religious front” of the war against Ukraine with varying degrees of
voluntariness. Therefore, “protecting the independence of the Church”
in Ukraine is impossible without a strong and well-articulated policy in
this area. Moreover, without such a policy, outside the “social
engineering” freedom of conscience as such can not be considered
unthreatened. For none of the individual premises of such freedom, which
are considered objective by its theorists, are really decisive.
Economic freedom, political stability, legitimacy of the ruling regime,
religious pluralism, etc. do not automatically entail the flourishing of
freedom of conscience.
Therefore, first of all, in the
implementation of policy in the field of religion, one needs to be aware
that securitization of religion is not just about ISIS and Islamist
terrorists, but also about the church policy of the Kremlin and the
organized structured groups in Ukraine with relevant funding. These are
the specific entities and people with known surnames who managed the
process impeding free expression of religious feelings, conscious
religious choice and exercise of the right to freedom of conscience by
Ukrainian citizens. They did it, among other things, by blocking access
of the faithful to their churches, including direct physical obstruction
of religious sacraments and ceremonies, which is a direct violation of
the Law “On freedom of conscience and religious organizations”, which is
punishable under Article 80 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine; by
preventing the Ukrainian Orthodox to enter the Orthodox Plenitude; by
inciting enmity on the basis of attitude to religion; by discrediting
Ukraine on all international platforms.
The aforesaid is being done to appoint
thugs (titushkas) at the local level, who prowl in Ukraine, accompanied
by the propagandists, and prevent believers from leaving the Moscow
Patriarchate using clubs, no need for new laws implied. It is also being
done for the purpose of taming the hierarchs who directly urged to
disrupt conscription to the Ukrainian army. The fact that all the above
has not been achieved is an obvious disadvantage of the religious policy
implemented so far.
Once again, we are dealing not only and
not so much with the Moscow Patriarchate, as with the Russian state. It
doesn't miss the slightest chance to strike the most painful blow
possible against Ukraine at the church front. The author had a "good"
opportunity to repeatedly get ascertained thereof personally: both in
Ukraine and abroad, in such different places as Strasbourg, Tbilisi or
Dunhuang in the Chinese province of Gansu.
Securitization of religion in my
understanding is not limited to police actions, to a strict application
of laws in respect of those who pose a threat to the rights and freedoms
of citizens and to the development of new laws that close loopholes for
perpetrators. This is quite a complex set of measures, which includes
the struggle for the minds of those who are the main object of religious
abuse, and religious education, which makes society more tolerant and
less vulnerable to manipulation.
Next, the second. The state should
effectively support Ukrainian hierarchs and religious leaders in their
efforts to strengthen the international coalition in support of Ukraine.
It is difficult to overestimate what they have done to educate the
Western public and religious media about Russian aggression, to
contribute to the well-known UN Resolutions, the European Parliament,
PACE, NATO Parliamentary Assembly, condemning religious persecution in
annexed Crimea and occupied territories of Donbas. Moreover, not only
primates and heads of numerous Churches but also representatives of
denominations, the number of whose members in Ukraine is not large, have
been doing a very important job here. Don't forget that in the U.S.
Congress, for example, comprises now 10 Mormons, whose co-religionists
mercilessly persecuted in the so-called ORDLO, and 72 Baptists, who are
declared a "harmful Pro-Ukrainian sect" in "Luhansk People's Republic".
An item on the agenda is the establishment of the Representation of the
All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and religious organizations in the EU
structures, which requires some assistance from the state. Again, this
Representation will experience an extremely hostile attitude on the Part
of the Representation of the Russian Orthodox Church. At least because
the Representation of the ROC at the European international
organizations pursues an absolutely political agenda. At the time, one
of his supervisors Fr. Antony Ilyin said that he sees as its goal to
organize "Orthodox intergroup" in the European Parliament; to achieve
proclamation of Russian as the official language of the European Union;
to ensure trilateral dialogue between the Orthodox Church, the European
People’s Party and Putin's United Russia.
Third, state policy should
unconditionally promote the active involvement of the Church institution
in the development of the country. During the time of Independence,
Ukraine has made significant progress towards the formation of a model
of Church-state cooperation. This is natural because the regime of
separation of Church and state implies in no country (except, perhaps,
China and North Korea) that these two institutions can not and should
not cooperate. Now such separation in Ukraine is predominantly perceived
as an absolute marginalization of the institution of the Church than it
was 25-20 years ago. But it is still perceived. Meanwhile, as Jonathan
Fox and Shmuel Sandler concluded in their study, only in 3.8% of the
Western democracies the Church is firmly separated from the state.
Moreover, I would add that in two of these democracies, which
historically have the most consistent regime of separation, the nature
of this regime differs significantly. If for France the separation is
primarily non-interference of the Church in state matters, for the US it
is the government's non-interference in the affairs of religious
organizations. But neither France nor the United States has fundamental
problems regarding the understanding of the need to finance military
chaplains, as it was the case in Ukraine at the stage of discussing the
concept of military clergymen service. I would also like to note that
half of Western democracies pay salaries to clergyman, one-fifth of the
countries restricts business activities on religious holidays in one way
or another, one-third of them finance church charities, and more than
90% finances religious education or religious schools in different ways.
In Ukraine, it seems that the introduction of the principle of
subsidiarity, which organically fits into the policy of
decentralization, will contribute to productive cooperation between
Church and state. It is obvious that the implementation of the principle
that social problems are solved at the grassroots level, making the
solution possible and effective, will make hundreds, if not thousands of
religious organizations the subject of direct social action. That will
lead both to the rise of their members ‘social activity, and to the
common good.
Under this review, it would be relevant to introduce the principle of percentage charity (the principle that the 8th
convocation of the Verkhovna Rada has embodied in several bills, which
never became a Law). We are talking about the principle when a citizen
deducts one to one and a half percent of their personal income tax (this
varies in different countries) for charitable purposes: culture, Church
or sports. It does not just strengthen the material base of religious
organizations, theaters or art schools, but “decentralizes” the country,
contributes to the development of civil society and awareness of every
citizen and taxpayer.
Fourthly, we must not forget that the
human being is at the centre of the policy we are considering. They
should enjoy the right to believe in what they consider worthy of belief
and whose freedom of conscience can be limited only when they undermine
the freedoms and rights of others (and even then, let me remind you,
such restrictions should be clearly specified by law and be adequate for
a democratic society). Therefore, one cannot rest satisfied that the
right laws have been adopted, the necessary standards are effective,
international ratings are not bad, and the leaders of various religious
associations are happy. In fact, the architecture of this freedom must
be constantly maintained, because the temptation to limit it is in the
blood and flesh of the state. Especially if it concerns minorities or
so-called “non-traditional religions”. Especially when the
conventionality or unconventionality is determined by the taste of some
official.
Therefore, in discussions about the body
that should implement state policy on religion, I uphold the view that
it should be strong. It should be strong to be able to protect country
from disasters in this segment in case of the serious changes; in order
to effectively promote the actualization of the social potential of
religious organizations; to be able to protect the religious environment
of Ukraine from continuous and violent attacks from outside and to
protect the interests of the country and its religious organizations
both inside and outside the arena; to be able to work out an effective
model that would balance individual and group rights to freedom of
conscience with reliable protectors of abuse of religion; in order not
to admit a ‘Ternopil’ or ‘Zaporizhzhia’ policy in the religious sphere,
and to advocate only and exclusively the Ukrainian one. To finally
protect a believer, who despaired due to the inability to defend their
religious rights in different instances.
This, perhaps, is the main thing. Everything else is details.