Last year the Orthodox for Russia members in Ukraine were around 4% and falling so they are a tiny percentage of the Orthodox in Ukraine.
In Russia isn’t the Orthodox religious stuff mostly theatrical and state-connected ceremonies and the Russians themselves don’t actually go to church while the eager Christians who aren’t Orthodox are persecuted and harassed?
The numbers I see are that Ukraine is far more religious than Russia.
Exactly correct. The Russian Orthodox Church has come down solidly on the side of the Russian invasion.
While I do not support their closures, this action is against the Russian Orthodox Church, not Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox in general. It is simply false to portray this as an attack on the Orthodox faith as a whole.
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Yes, but why slip and slide around the issue that it’s an outright attack on religious worship nonetheless? Whatever denomination being attacked, it’s anti-christian and evil at its core. The writer is trying to point out the media and official silence in the West over this religious persecution. All dictators abhor organized religion, whichever manifestation it comes in.
My understanding is the Orthodox church rejects Christ’s divinity.
A distinction without a a difference.
While in America it may appear that there are multiple churches that are orthodox, and "Russian Orthodox" is just one of them, along with Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthdox, etc - this is unique to America (due to our huge immigrant population).
In almost every other country the Orthodox church is the church of that country. Almost all the Orthodox churches in Greece are "Greek Orthodox". (Yes, I'm sure there are a few exceptions that prove the rule.)
In Ukrainian Orthodox Church was the main Orthodox Church in Ukraine for the last 1000 years. In 2019 the Zelensky regime created a new "Orthodox Church of Ukraine" because they did not appreciate the historic connection between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Patriarch of Moscow. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the de facto national church of Ukraine. It has over 8,000 parishes. (The Catholic Church has 17,000 parishes in the United States, as a comparison.)
Orthodox Christianity is the religion of 72% of the population of Ukraine. Catholicism is the second largest group 9% (Atheists / Can't Say make up 12%).
Therefore, for all intents and purposes, the Zelensky regimes attack on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is not just an attack on some inconsequential denomination, it's an attack on the Orthodox Church which most Ukrainians are part of, and also the Christian denomination which most Ukrainians belong to, and also the top religious organization in the nation.
You can't really make an easy equivalency in the USA. It would be a lot like outlawing or persecuting the Roman Catholic Church in Italy. (79% of Italians belong to it).
There is an obvious connection between the Biden regimes overt hostility to Christianity in America, and in particular the targeting of the Catholic Church, and his client regime headed by Zelensky and their targeting of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.