The Ukrainian Council of Churches delegation held meetings in the White House and USCIRF

The importance of US support for Ukraine until the final victory was emphasized by representatives of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) during a meeting with Kelly Razzouk, Special Assistant to the US President and White House Senior Director for Democracy and Human Rights. The conversation took place on November 1, 2023, at the White House as part of the visit of the UCCRO delegation to Washington, D.C.

"The civilian population of Ukraine, including women and children, suffer daily from Russian missile and drone shelling. We are grateful to the United States for air defense systems and other weapons that help protect the lives of Ukrainian civilians," stressed Stanislav Nosov, the UCCRO Chairman, the head of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ukraine.

On the same day, Ukrainian religious figures visited the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and met with Commissioner Eric Ueland and Executive Director Erin Singshinsuk. Based on the experience of their own religious communities, members of the Ukrainian delegation testified to the cruelty of the Russian military against religious figures and believers who suffer arbitrary arrests, torture, and imprisonment in inhumane conditions in Ukrainian territories that Russia temporarily controls.

“Russian invaders brutally persecute our pastors and believers of evangelical churches. Hatred is incited against them, and they are branded as ‘American agents’ or ‘sectarians.’ They are groundlessly accused of extremism, imprisoned, tortured, and killed for their faith. As a result, our Church no longer has any communities in the part of the Luhansk region occupied by the Russian military. Our ministers are banned from entering the area. While in the occupied part of the Donetsk region, evangelical churches are allowed to engage in religious activities, but on the condition of subordination to Russian religious centers," said Anatoliy Kozachok, Senior Bishop of the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church.

The situation of religious communities in the southern regions of Ukraine, temporarily occupied by Russian troops as a result of the full-scale invasion, similarly worsened in 2022-2023.

“For more than thirty years, Muslims have been enjoying religious freedom that came to Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rather, in Crimea, as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, temporarily controlled by Russia, the occupation authorities took control of all Muslim religious communities and are brutally persecuting pro-Ukrainian believers, primarily those among Crimean Tatars. Russia wants to restore the Soviet Union and a total dictatorship, but the people of Ukraine have made a different choice in favor of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and integration with the European Union," said Sheikh Akhmed Tamim, the Supreme Mufti of Ukraine, Head of the Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine.

While in Washington, the UCCRO representatives visited the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. As the delegates noted, the historical events of Nazi Germany and the propaganda of hatred against the Jewish people, unfortunately, are now being repeated by the leadership of Russia, which commits genocide against the people of Ukraine and justifies it through the mouths of Russian religious figures.

“Today, while visiting the Holocaust Museum, I read a quote by Elie Wiesel: ‘For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.’ This is the goal of our visit to the United States: to testify to the pain, suffering, and struggle of our brave Ukrainian people against the evil that has invaded our home," said Anatoliy Raychynets, Deputy Secretary General of the Ukrainian Bible Society.

Members of the Ukrainian delegation also held meetings with representatives of the Jewish and Muslim communities of the United States in Washington. They shared their experience of interfaith cooperation within the framework of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations and told about the high level of religious freedom in Ukraine despite martial law.

The delegation of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations arrived in the United States consisting of representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Evangelical Church, the Union of Jewish Religious Organizations, the Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Bible Society, as well as the leadership of the Institute for Religious Freedom.

After the events in Washington, Ukrainian religious leaders will visit Houston, Texas, where they will hold a series of meetings with local religious figures, politicians, and opinion leaders. The visit of the UCCRO delegation to the United States is supported by the American RAZOM Foundation.