Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church calls for enforced "reprogramming" of Ukrainians in the occupied territories
The Russian propaganda channel Tsargrad published an interview with the head of the Synodal Missionary Department, Bishop Yevfimiy of Luhovytsia, in which the latter spoke of his plans to work in the occupied territories of Ukraine. This was reported by Religion in Ukraine.
In particular, Bishop Yevfimiy mentioned the creation of the educational project "Orthodoxy" at the end of July, aimed at bringing the training of "Orthodox missionaries" to a "new level". The project was headed by Archpriest Aleksandr Timofeev, who works for the Russian army, builds "marching churches" of the Russian Orthodox Church and provides "spiritual care" to the Russian occupation forces.
One of the tasks assigned to Timofeev is to "reprogram" the residents of the occupied territories who still refuse to accept Russia as their homeland. According to Yevfimiy, "weeds" have grown on the "missionary field" during Ukraine's "domination": "Our Department pays special attention to the military mission. Our employees regularly travel to the area of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and study the peculiarities of the missionary field on the ground. To put it bluntly, after many years of these primordially Russian lands being dominated by the state entity called "Ukraine", this field has become overgrown with weeds. Since there are no other options, we must work in these conditions."
In late June, the PACE adopted a resolution entitled "Countering the erasure of cultural identity in time of war and peace," in which it recognized Russia's genocidal intent in destroying Ukrainian cultural heritage and forcibly changing the identity of Ukrainians. In early June, the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) presented a report proving the involvement of Russian Orthodox Church priests in engaging Ukrainian children deported from orphanages and boarding schools in the occupied Donetsk region in "military-patriotic" activities. According to ISW, the deportation of Ukrainian children with the intention of destroying their Ukrainian identity through Russification projects involving the ROC is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which prohibits the "forcible transfer of children of one group to another group" on the grounds of it constituting an act of genocide.
