The Council of Christian Churches of Ukraine, whose members are religious associations representing the majority of Christian communities in our country, expresses its profound indignation at yet another instance of the Russian state’s use of religion and religious institutions to justify and sustain its aggressive policies.

The immediate impetus for this statement was the “Report of the Foreign Intelligence Service” of the Russian Federation, disseminated by the press bureau of this Kremlin intelligence agency on January 12, 2026, as well as the “Statement of the Churches – Members of the Christian Interconfessional Consultative Committee” (CICC) dated January 15 of this year—an institution that brings together the leadership of Christian Churches whose activities are connected to the Russian Federation.

The text circulated by the Russian intelligence service, both in form and content culturally and morally unacceptable, advances unfounded accusations against the Head of the Constantinople Patriarchate, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew—one of the world’s leading Christian leaders. This unprecedented public attack by Russian intelligence on him and on the activities of the Constantinople Patriarchate, in its style and spirit, recalls the worst examples of Bolshevik anti-religious propaganda, by which the totalitarian Soviet regime sought to conceal its numerous crimes—systematic violations of human rights, terror, and persecution of religion. In precisely this manner and spirit, Kremlin services and their subordinates in the past spoke of Christian leaders within the former USSR and in countries it occupied—Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant—who opposed the Kremlin’s totalitarian policies and defended freedom and truth.

The appearance, immediately following the above-mentioned statement, of a document issued on behalf of the CICC, which in a more restrained manner essentially repeats the same ideas as the Kremlin intelligence document, in itself testifies to the close connection between the Russian state and the leadership of the major religious associations of the Russian Federation—a fact we have previously addressed publicly on numerous occasions. In our view, the “CICC Statement” is nothing other than an attempt to justify Russia’s policy of using religious organizations whose governing centers are located in the Russian Federation as instruments for propagating the aggressive ideology of the “Russian world” (Russkiy mir).

Having extensive negative experience of how, during the Soviet era, Kremlin intelligence services exerted pressure on Christian Churches and interfered in their activities, including through agents drawn from among religious figures, we are absolutely convinced that the aforementioned CICC statement emerged under pressure from the Russian state and at its behest.

This statement, like the paired statement of Russian intelligence, is filled with falsehoods and distortions of reality designed to serve Russia’s aggressive state propaganda, which attacks all those who resist the totalitarian ideology of the “Russian world”—a doctrine and practice that, from a Christian perspective, have been condemned, inter alia, in the “Helsinki Statement” of the Conference of European Churches. The statement of Russian intelligence and the “CICC Statement” have once again confirmed the undeniable fact that the Kremlin dictatorship uses religious rhetoric and religious centers located on the territory of the Russian Federation as tools to justify and conduct hybrid warfare in Ukraine, the Baltic states, Moldova, and throughout the world.

On behalf of the Christian Churches of Ukraine that we represent, we testify that in our country, both at the legislative level and in practice, genuine freedom of religion is ensured, and that religious persecution—falsely yet persistently claimed by pro-Russian propaganda—does not exist. We stand in solidarity with Ukrainian society and our state in opposing the use by the authorities of the Russian Federation of religion and religious institutions as one of many instruments for inciting and justifying war. Such wartime mobilization of religious institutions of the Russian Federation, and their promotion of the doctrine of the “Russian world,” which includes, among other things, the unacceptable concept of a “holy war,” constitutes a violation of both fundamental Gospel principles and the foundational principles of freedom of religion.

Time and again, we testify to the numerous facts of systematic religious persecution and other mass human rights violations that the Russian state authorities have deliberately carried out since 2014 in the territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation, and in which they have also involved religious associations under their control with centers located in the Russian Federation.

We call upon Christian leaders worldwide, interconfessional institutions—particularly the World Council of Churches and the Conference of European Churches—international organizations and human rights defenders, governments and non-governmental organizations of democratic countries to:

- defend freedom of conscience and religion against deliberate, cynical, and systemic attacks by the Russian Federation;

- stand up for religious leaders and institutions subjected by the Russian state and by organizations subordinate to or controlled by it, including religious ones, to propaganda attacks, repression, and persecution for their anti-war stance and for their resistance to the ideology of the “Russian world”;

- effectively counter Russia’s policy of instrumentalizing religion and religious institutions, turning them into tools of the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare;

- consistently expose and condemn the ideology of the “Russian world” and the practice of its implementation as contrary to fundamental human rights and freedoms, universal human values, and Gospel teaching, and as promoting and justifying acts of genocide and other war crimes of the Russian Federation, including those committed in Ukraine.

We call upon and ask all Christians to continue praying for the triumph of truth and the establishment of a just peace in Ukraine and throughout the world. May the Lord bless peacemaking efforts and everyone who, in word and deed, serves the witness of His truth!

Anatoliy Kozachok, Chairman of the Council of Christian Churches of Ukraine, Senior Bishop of the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church 

Epiphaniy, Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine

Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Galych

Vitalii Kryvytskyi, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, Ordinary of Kyiv-Zhytomyr

Valerii Antoniuk, Head of the All-Ukrainian Union of the Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists

Roman Prodaniuk, President of the Ukrainian Union Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Oleksandr Zaitsev, Senior Bishop of the Ukrainian Evangelical Church

Leonid Padun, Senior Bishop of the Ukrainian Christian Evangelical Church

Marcos Hovhannisyan, Bishop of the Ukrainian Diocese of Armenian Apostolic Church

Vyacheslav Horpynchuk, Bishop of the Ukrainian Lutheran Church

Mykola Rozhniatovskyi, Chairman of the Brotherhood of Independent Churches and Missions of Evangelical Christian Baptists of Ukraine, Pastor

Kyiv, January 23, 2026