The Security Service of Ukraine has blocked the operation of websites covering the activities of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in the country. This is reported by the Union of Orthodox Journalists (UOJ), which published a corresponding document on its website.
It is noted that the SPJ website, as well as two other Internet resources, were blocked by order of the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection.
The document states that the sites will remain blocked until the end of martial law in Ukraine. The reasons for the blocking are not given, there is only a reference to the decree of the President of Ukraine on the imposition of martial law and his articles on electronic communication. In addition, according to the document, Ukrainian providers must report on the implementation of this order.
The persecution of the UOC began in Ukraine after the 2014 coup under President Petro Poroshenko. In December 2018, with the support of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PCU) was created from two schismatic organizations. Since then, with the encouragement of the authorities, schismatics from the OCU have been forcibly seizing churches of the UOC, attacking priests. On August 20, the Verkhovna Rada adopted in final reading a law allowing to ban the UOC. On August 24, the document was signed by President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky.
In turn, local authorities deprive the canonical church of the right to lease land for temples, law enforcement agencies bring charges of treason and other crimes against the priests of the UOC, and impose sanctions.