AUCCRO Delegation Meets with Officials at the British Foreign Office
On January 29, 2025, a delegation from the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO) met with the Eastern Research Group and the UK Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion and Belief, David Smith, at the Foreign Office in London.
During their meeting with the Eastern Research Group, representatives of Ukrainian churches and religious organizations detailed the human-hating ideology of the “Russian world” and the fusion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Putin regime. They highlighted the Kremlin’s weaponization of the Russian Orthodox Church, various Protestant associations, Muslim centers, and other religious groups in Russia, as well as the implementation of a neo-imperial project that portrays Moscow as the “last stronghold of Christianity,” excluding Ukraine and other independent states of Central and Eastern Europe.
Metropolitan Yevstratiy emphasized that one of the fundamental reasons for the aggression against Ukraine is the Kremlin regime’s ambition to realize a neo-imperial project—the modern incarnation of the medieval myth of Moscow as the alleged Third Rome. The Moscow Patriarchate plays a pivotal role in this project, having made significant efforts to formulate and promote the ideology of the “Russian world,” which underpins Russia’s current aggressive policies. As numerous facts confirm, the Moscow Patriarchate functions as a state entity that exploits religious rhetoric and appearances to serve ideological purposes. It is an instrument of hybrid warfare, and the international community should recognize it as such, exposing its instrumentalization of the Church for war propaganda.
Ukrainian religious leaders answered numerous questions from the group of analysts and provided recommendations on countering the hybrid war waged by the Russian Federation against the democratic world.
During their meeting with the UK Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion and Belief, David Smith, AUCCRO representatives shared Ukraine’s experience of interfaith dialogue and cooperation, exemplified by the Council of Churches and other interfaith organizations. They also attested to the state of religious freedom in Ukraine, despite the challenges of wartime.
Ukrainian religious leaders drew the Special Envoy’s attention to religious persecution and Russian war crimes in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, as well as Russia’s establishment of a “mutated” version of the Soviet regime rooted in the chauvinistic ideology of the “Russian world.”
Pastor Anatoliy Raychynets stated that Ukraine endured the communist regime of the USSR, where there was no place for believers. His grandfather and father were persecuted by the Soviet authorities for their faith and service to the Church. His grandfather, an evangelical pastor, spent nine years in prison for his beliefs. As a boy, he remembered KGB agents raiding their home, searching for and confiscating Bibles and church books. Today, in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, a “mutated” ideology has taken hold in which there is no place for free people and sincere believers. Church buildings are seized for the needs of the Russian army, worship is banned, and clergy are murdered and tortured—this is the reality of the “Russian world.” As clergymen who care about people’s lives, they appealed for help, asking the UK to provide Ukraine with arms and all necessary support so that the Ukrainian Defense Forces can protect the lives of children, women, and all civilians, because the Russians have come to slaughter Ukrainians.
David Smith requested that the AUCCRO delegation provide him with documentation on religious persecution and crimes committed by Russia. He assured them that he would use his authority as Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion and as a Member of Parliament to advocate for the protection of believers’ rights in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the AUCCRO delegation presented Special Envoy David Smith with a painting depicting Jesus Christ praying against the backdrop of the Irpin Bridge, the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, and the railway station in Kramatorsk. The artwork bore the inscription: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15).
Later that day, the AUCCRO delegation also met with members of Parliament from the inter-party group on freedom of religion and belief.
The UGCC Department for Information
