Last week America’s Socrates was at it again. Tucker Carlson took to X/Twitter, scolding U.S. political leaders for Ukraine policy. Which one? Looking the other way while Kyiv outlaws an entire branch of Orthodox Christianity. “The Ukrainian government has now banned an entire Christian denomination.” Yet “virtually no one in the United States has said anything about it.” President Zelenskyy’s administration detests the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Kyiv accuses the UOC of supporting Russia’s invasion. And Ukraine’s Security Services had brought 68 criminal cases, including treason, against UOC priests. Does bipartisan American silence equal approval?

Outlawing a Ukrainian Church

Tucker interviewed the attorney representing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Bob Amsterdam (who’s Jewish). “The damage that’s been visited on the leadership of this church, including five year jail sentences for 75-year old clerics, just astounds you.” Especially in “a country that wants to join the EU.” Amsterdam also noted there is no basis for these actions. Neither in international law, nor the laws of war. Not even in besieged Ukraine’s constitution. Amsterdam expressed shock that “a country such as the United States, with such strong Christian leadership, I thought, would allow this to go on.”

Yes, Russia is the Bad Guy

No one is disputing that Russia started this war. And that it has been a killing field. Russia’s military losses may top 100,000. Ukraine’s, 70,000. Civilian losses are horrible, too, even if they are much lower, in the tens of thousands, than some hyperbolic reports. The Ukrainians should be outraged at Russia. But at a church? To which millions of Ukrainians belong?

Ukrainian Church History Is Complex 

Getting a handle on this requires reviewing some complex church history. Ukraine has 33 million people, the vast majority Christian. About 72% are Orthodox, 9% Catholic, 4% Protestant. Orthodoxy came to Kievan Rus from Constantinople in the 10th century AD. The modern UOC (-MP, “Moscow Patriarchate”) claims descent from that church body. Through many historical twists and turns, it has always been closely connected to Moscow. In the late 17th century the Ecumenical Patriarch (EP) in Istanbul formally put the Orthodox in Ukraine under the Moscow Patriarchate. Although some there resisted. (The world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians are under 19 Patriarchates. Moscow/Russia has the largest population, while that of “Constantinople” has the most cachet.) This all became rather moot during Soviet times.

What’s Happened Post-Cold War 

But when the USSR collapsed in 1991, and Ukraine became an independent country, divisions re-emerged. Some Ukrainian Orthodox churches had never accepted obedience to Moscow. These were known, collectively, as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate. By 2018, it comprised over 25% of Orthodox in Ukraine, while the Moscow-oriented UOC (-MP) made up 12-15%. (Many Orthodox identify with neither jurisdiction.) On January 5, 2019, current EP Bartholomew recognized the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). He did so by merging the UOC (-MP) with the much smaller Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. (Don’t ask. You’re already getting graduate credit for this article.) All of these machinations followed decades of Kyiv-Moscow feuding. As well as Istanbul-Moscow grudges. But the proximate cause was Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Politicians really drove this. Primarily, the Ukrainian President at the time, Petro Poroshenko. Why? Like many Ukrainians, he thought it a matter of national pride and survival that the Ukrainian church be independent.

Reactions, American and Otherwise

President Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, publicly supported the creation of the OCU. Thus the American government and the EP’s office sang the same troparion. No surprise, really. The Archbishop of “Constantinople” had been a Western ally throughout the Cold War. (The Trump Administration’s support for an independent Ukrainian Orthodox church should have put a stake in the heart of “Russia collusion.” But of course it didn’t.) By the way, not all Orthodox prelates agreed with the EP. The Metropolitan of Cyprus, for example, decried it as “authoritarian, uncanonical, and unacceptable.” And said it had created “schism” in Eastern Orthodoxy. But also most were quite critical of the Moscow Patriarch’s support for Putin’s invasion.

Banning Churches? That’s a Muslim Thing

Now, as Tucker fumes, Ukraine’s political leaders have banned the oldest Orthodox Church in that country. One with at least 4 million members and over 8000 parishes. Maybe some of those sympathize with Russia politically. If they take concrete action to help Putin’s troops during war, they should be held to account. But a blanket ban on the entire church organization? That smacks of Islamic-style repression of other religions. Which rather undercuts President Biden’s claim that Ukraine is fighting for democracy. A contention upon which he recently doubled down. And quite ironic in light of Ukraine’s failing score in that regard.

Our Politicians’ Political Blindness

So why the deafening bipartisan silence on this issue from America’s politicians? Democrats years ago went all-in on Trump’s “Russia Collusion.” Leaving them no choice but to perpetually portray that country as the Bad Orange Man’s enabler. Republicans, for their part, seem to think the Cold War is still on. Or, indeed, wish it were. I miss Reagan, too. But the “Evil Empire” he railed against is gone. Russia is now a religious and nationalist state. An often belligerent one. But not the largest satrapy in a Communist confederation. So neither side of the political aisle here can bring itself to criticize Ukraine. It’s their geopolitical George Floyd, and Putin is Derek Chauvin.

 But There’s a Religious Element, Too

But I think there’s a deeper reason. The founders of the Reformation, or at least Luther, had rather positive views of Orthodoxy. (Full disclosure: after 35 years as a Lutheran, and attending Lutheran seminary, I converted to Orthodoxy last year.) This had changed by the 19th century. American Protestants in the Middle East “largely targeted the non-Muslim populations.” Partly because Islam was too tough a nut to crack. But also because of seeing Eastern Christianity as inferior.

For example, there was Edward Robinson, a Congregationalist pastor and Biblical archaeologist. He described Eastern Christians as “ ‘nominal Christians who needed education in the true and simple gospel.” And Andrew Watson, who worked to convert Egypt’s Copts to Presbyterianism. Why? Because they “had fallen victim to malformed, ornate religion.”

Ultimately, such outreach to Eastern Christians largely failed. But I believe it left a legacy in conservative American Protestantism. One of misgivings about Orthodoxy. In addition, that brand of Christianity is an outlier in American society, with only a few million adherents. (Although it is growing.) The current Congress is 57% Protestant, 1.5% Orthodox. The Vice-President is Baptist and the new Speaker is Evangelical. So it’s easy to see why Orthodox Christianity is off the radar screen of our overwhelmingly Protestant leadership. What about “Catholic” President Biden? His radar screen is only as large as his Teleprompter’s. Which others program for him.

Biden Administration Blinded by Wokeness

And Biden’s handlers have changed the terms of the religious freedom debate. Religious rights around the world are no longer of prime importance. They have been tossed in the trunk, while LGBTQ claims ride shotgun, and control the GPS. Homosexuality is a sin in Orthodoxy. But the Russian church goes above and beyond moral disapproval. It quite publicly backed “anti-LGBT” legislation there. That’s all the more reason, from the Biden Administration’s perspective, to ignore Ukraine’s repression of the UOC.

Can We Just Take the Blinders Off?

Yes, Ukraine is the victim vis-à-vis Russia. But Carlson is correct about one major thing. That America  has a right to demand Kyiv respect basic religious rights. Especially since we’ve given that country at least $113 billion in aid. When will that happen? When American politicians, both Democrat and Republican, manage to take off their ideological and religious blinders.

Timothy Furnish holds a Ph.D. in Islamic, World and African history from Ohio State University and a M.A. in Theology from Concordia Seminary. He is a former U.S. Army Arabic linguist and, later, civilian consultant to U.S. Special Operations Command. He’s the author of books on the Middle East and Middle-earth, a history professor and sometime media opiner (as, for example, on Fox News Channel’s War Stories: Fighting ISIS). He currently writes for and consults The Stream on International Security matters.