The Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea firmly condemns the criminal actions of the Russian occupation administration regarding the final destruction of the Holy Cross Exaltation Church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Yevpatoriia—the last Orthodox Church of the Ukrainian Church in Crimea. 

The struggle of the parish “Neopalyma Kupyna” named after the Holy Image of the Mother of God in Yevpatoriia and the Administration of the Crimean Diocese of the OCU for the church has been going on since the beginning of the occupation of the peninsula. Earlier, it became known that the occupiers applied to the occupation “court” for the so-called “permission to demolish the church.” In July, the occupiers began dismantling the church—they removed the dome and dismantled the upper part of the church.

The Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea has initiated criminal proceedings under Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Violation of the laws and customs of war”). All those involved in the liquidation of the last Ukrainian church on the peninsula face up to 12 years in prison.

Administrative, judicial, and forceful pressure by the occupation administration of the Russian Federation on the Crimean Diocese of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine to stop its activities and force it out of temporarily occupied Crimea began in 2014, immediately after the occupation, and gained momentum over ten years. The result of this pressure was a sharp decrease in parishes and priests: before the occupation, there were 49 religious communities in Crimea (parishes, missions, brotherhoods, monasteries), and by the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, there were only seven of them. 

The Mission emphasizes that the destruction of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Crimea, the forced displacement of priests outside the peninsula, and the consistent persecution of Ukrainian citizens on the territory of the occupied peninsula on religious and ethnic grounds are a violation of international law and a systematic activity to destroy Ukrainian identity on the occupied peninsula.

In June of this year, in the case of Ukraine v. Russia (concerning Crimea), the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) identified numerous human rights violations, including the right to freedom of religion, by the Russian occupiers against the residents of occupied Crimea, enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.

We call on the international community and the global religious community to condemn the criminal actions of the Russian Federation in occupied Crimea, namely the persecution of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the unlawful destruction of its churches. We call for a response to the latest violations of the same rights, which have already been ruled illegal by the ECHR in the case of Ukraine v. Russia (concerning Crimea).