Ukraine’s War on Christianity: When Fighting Putin Turns Into Fighting the Church

The war in Ukraine has entered its fourth year, but for millions of believers, the battle is no longer just about territory—it’s about faith itself. On August 27, Ukraine’s government announced its most aggressive move yet against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), petitioning to ban its governing body and strip away the right of its faithful to gather, worship, and preserve their centuries-old heritage.

What began in 2022 as a defensive war against Russian aggression has turned into something darker: a campaign that risks turning Ukraine into a land where churches are seized, bishops exiled, and priests treated as criminals.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, led by Metropolitan Onufry, is one of the two major branches of Orthodoxy in Ukraine. It has deep historical ties to Moscow, but in 2022—when Russian troops rolled across the border—it formally severed relations with the Russian Orthodox hierarchy.

The UOC denounced the invasion, refused to commemorate Patriarch Kirill (Putin’s close ally), and even created new parishes abroad to minister to Ukrainian refugees. In other words, it declared independence.

But that wasn’t enough for the Zelensky government. Officials demanded not just declarations, but wholesale revisions of the church’s internal documents, changes in its governing structures, and political gestures to “prove” its loyalty. When Metropolitan Onufry refused—insisting that the UOC had already broken with Moscow—the state declared the church an enemy institution.

Now, Kyiv wants to ban it outright.

The Ukrainian government says this isn’t about religion, but “affiliation with an aggressor state.” Yet the reality is plain: believers are being punished not for what they teach, but for who the government says they are connected to.

The order would target the UOC’s central offices in Kyiv, monasteries, dioceses, and parishes. Many historic church sites—owned by the state and leased to the church—could be taken away. Bishops have already lost their citizenship. Clerics face criminal charges of “collaboration.”

This is not the language of liberty. This is the language of repression. And it is a dangerous echo of what Christians faced under Soviet communism, when governments dictated which churches were “approved” and which were “subversive.”

Even the United Nations has warned Ukraine that its new law could “hold entire religious communities responsible for the conduct of specific individuals.” The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom expressed concern last year as well.

But Kyiv marches forward, cheered on by the very Western elites who lecture Americans about “separation of church and state.”

Consider the hypocrisy. When Christian parents in America oppose LGBT indoctrination in schools, the Left calls them “extremists.” When Christian bakers refuse to violate their faith, they’re dragged into court. And now, when a Christian church in Ukraine refuses to submit itself entirely to a secular government’s demands, it is branded a branch of the enemy and threatened with extinction.

The globalist elite, in Brussels and Washington alike, see this as progress. They want Ukraine not just to defeat Russia, but to remake its culture in their image—stripped of traditional Christianity, bent toward liberalism, and dependent on foreign aid.

And they expect American taxpayers to foot the bill.

This is exactly why President Donald J. Trump has been right to question endless U.S. aid to Ukraine. Why should hardworking Americans be forced to bankroll a government that seizes churches, prosecutes priests, and treats religious liberty as an obstacle to be removed?

Charity begins at home. Our southern border is in chaos. Families are struggling under inflation. Our veterans are neglected. Yet Washington’s ruling class insists on sending tens of billions to a foreign regime that openly represses the church.

This isn’t about “defending democracy.” A government that crushes the church is not defending democracy—it is imitating the very tyranny it claims to resist.

For Christians, whether in Ukraine, Russia, or America, the principle is the same: the church must be free from the fist of the state. When governments dictate doctrine, silence clergy, or seize property, they don’t just undermine religion—they make themselves God.

Ukraine’s war on the UOC is more than a local dispute. It is a warning to Christians everywhere. If Western governments can justify repression abroad in the name of “security,” how long before they do it here at home in the name of “democracy defense” or “domestic extremism”?

Christians in America must see this clearly: the assault on faith in Ukraine is part of a broader pattern. From Canada’s arrest of pastors during COVID, to Europe’s prosecutions for “hate speech” when believers quote the Bible, to America’s own FBI spying on traditional Catholics—our freedom to worship is under fire.

Ukraine is simply the latest battleground. And if we continue to fund a regime that criminalizes churches, we send a message to our own leaders that such repression is acceptable.

It’s time to draw the line. America must stop subsidizing attacks on faith. And American Christians must raise their voices for their brothers and sisters in Ukraine, who face not just bombs from Russia, but bans from their own government.

The choice before us is stark: Will we defend religious liberty abroad and at home, or will we sell out the church to political expedience and globalist ideology?