Washington, D.C. February 7, 2025
Photo: Save the UOC
Robert Amsterdam, the international lawyer who is pro bono defending the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church against persecution, presented at the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C., on February 4.
Amsterdam & Partners LLP has been representing the Church 
Ukrainian Orthodox Church receiving pro bono defense from international law firmThe canonical Ukrainian Orthodox has enlisted the help of a major international law firm to protect its rights.
“>since the fall of 2023. Robert Amsterdam and the firm have spoken with Western media outlets and international human rights organizations many times in order to raise awareness of the Ukrainian government’s plans to ban its largest religion.
They also launched Save the UOC to sound the alarm.
And this Soviet-style act of repression is funded, Amsterdam emphasized on Tuesday, by the American government.
In attacking its own people in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian state imagines it is weakening Russia, Amsterdam explains, but it is, in fact, only dividing its own populace. In addition to the state’s plans to ban the entire Church, it is also targeting individual Church representatives, such as Ukraine court refuses to release UOC bishop despite Parliament members’ guarantees, won’t review evidenceThe Metropolitan was initially detained in late April, just before Holy Week.
“>His Eminence Metropolitan Arseny of Svyatogorsk, who has been languishing in detention for nearly a year on bogus charges, the lawyer emphasizes.
Watch Amsterdam’s full address:
Ironically, Evstraty Zorya, speaker for the schismatic “Orthodox Church Ukraine” and apologist for the persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, also presented at the Religious Freedom Summit, assuring his Western audience that millions of Ukrainians must be deprived of their religious freedom in order to thereby protect religious freedom.
Zorya used the psychological tactic of a classic manipulator, saying that the MP was created and is controlled by the Kremlin, comparing it with the Nazi “Reichskirche.” A pot calling the kettle black, Zorya was obviously trying to shift attention away from the arguably Nazi memberships, origins, and methods of the OCU, which is undeniably a creation of the current Kiev regime, onto the canonical Orthodox Church.
The Slavic peoples of Rus’ recieved Orthodoxy at the hands of the Byzantine Greeks. What is traditionally known as the Baptism of Rus’ dates to the mass baptism under St. Vladimir in Kiev, in the Dneipr River.
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Source: Orthodox Christianity
