By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia turned hundreds of churches and other religious sites into rubble since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“Since the beginning of this war, Russian strikes have destroyed more than 500 churches, prayer houses, and other religious buildings,” Zelenskyy stressed Thursday.
“Anyone who targets churches with missiles and bombs deserves nothing but the condemnation of the entire world,” he wrote on social media platform X.
“And this is exactly the attitude that the Russian state—the world's biggest terrorist today— should receive,” Zelenskyy added.
“We deeply appreciate every act of support for our state and people in this struggle for our lives —the life that Russia seeks to destroy completely,” the president said.
Moscow has denied deliberately targeting civilian sites such as churches, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, and condemned Kyiv’s decision to ban churches and religious groups linked to Moscow.
BANNING CHURCH
Just before Zelenskyy complained about the destroyed churches, Kyiv accused the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of complicity in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s parliament passed legislation by 265 votes to 29 that effectively bans the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which is allied with the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow.
Most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians, but the faith has split between the pro-Russia UOC and the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was recognized in 2019.
Russia condemned the move as a “powerful blow against the whole of Orthodoxy,” while its church, whose patriarch viewed the invasion of Ukraine as a “holy war,” called the bill “illegal.”
Despite the controversy, Zelenskyy, the first Jewish president of Ukraine, stressed that he had reached out to all churches and religions.
Kyiv also says that despite ongoing attacks against churches, the Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which unites different denominations and religions, continues to work.