Pope Francis condemns Ukraine ban on Russia-linked Orthodox Church

Pope Francis blesses the crowd from the windows of the apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s square, during the Sunday Angelus prayer at the Vatican on June 30, 2024. (Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP)

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday condemned the Ukraine government’s move to ban a Russia-linked branch of the country’s Orthodox Church.

“Do not touch churches,” the pope said in his weekly prayers, one day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr 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 met with the pope in June at the G7 in Italy — signed a law Saturday banning the Russian-linked Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

Ukraine has been seeking to distance itself from the Russian church since 2014 and the efforts have accelerated since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Zelensky approved the bill, slammed by Russia, on Kyiv’s independence day from the Soviet Union.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church officially broke away from the Moscow patriarchy in 2022, but Ukrainian officials repeatedly accuse its clerics of staying loyal to Russia.

Pope Francis said he continued to follow “with sorrow” the fighting in Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February 2022.