Churches and Religious Sites Lost in Ukraine

At least 494 religious buildings in Ukraine have been destroyed, damaged, or looted as a result of the Russian invasion - and seizure of religious buildings for use as Russian military bases increases the scale of destruction of religious sites, reports the Institute for Religious Freedom, a nongovernmental human rights organisation founded in 2001 in Kyiv, presenting data on the impact of the war on Ukrainian religious communities during a recent Summit Conference on Religious Freedom.

Most churches, mosques, and synagogues were destroyed in the occupied Donetsk (at least 120) and Luhansk (more than 70) regions. The scale of destruction is also high in the Kyiv region (70), where desperate battles were fought in defence of the capital, and in both the Kherson and Kharkiv regions, with more than 50 destroyed religious buildings in each. Even if the most affected regions are in the east of the country, damaged religious sites are spread across all of Ukraine, from Kherson in the south to Chernihiv in the north. Russian air strikes on civilian targets, including drone attacks, have affected almost all regions and continue.

The Institute also documented many cases of seizure of religious buildings for use as military bases or to conceal the firing positions of troops. This tactic of the Russian military provokes an increase in the scale of destruction of religious sites. Targeted attacks on religious figures and believers by the military and intelligence services, primarily in the occupied territories of Ukraine, are also documented. Believers and clergy often became targets for Russian occupation authorities, because of the Ukrainian language, belonging to a different denomination, or for any other manifestation of independent Ukrainian identity.

According to the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Affairs and Freedom of Conscience, at least 307 religious sites in Ukraine were ruined during the 11 months of Russia's attacks, including churches, mosques, synagogues, educational, and administrative buildings of Ukraine's religious communities. The majority of the religious sites damaged during the invasion are Christian (297), five of them are Muslim, and five Jewish. Thirty of the sites affected belong to various Protestant communities, 21 to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, five to the Roman Catholic Church, four to the Greek Catholic Church, and 95 to the Jehovah's Witnesses. Forty-eight percent of all Christian religious sites that were fully or partially ruined during Russian attacks (142) belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which declared its independence from the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church after its council meeting on 27 May 2022.

Link to the report: https://irf.in.ua/p/105