On March 29, 2023, Archbishop Michael of Prague, on behalf of his diocese, in an official appeal addressed to the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC, protested against pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This was reported by the Information and Education Department of the UOC with reference to the DECR website.

In the text, Archbishop Michael said that “terrible events are taking place in Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities are going to crucify the Church of Christ. The faithful and the clergy of the Prague Orthodox Diocese look at this with anxiety and sorrow in their hearts. The Ukrainian people are a brotherly people for us. That is why the beginning of the war resounded with pain in the soul of every believer of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands, and our diocese immediately joined in providing spiritual and material assistance to the refugees,” the Archbishop noted.

“So many misfortunes befell the Ukrainian people,” the text notes, “but this was not enough for the Ukrainian authorities, and they launched a crusade against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which culminated in the expulsion of the monks from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. And all this is happening despite the fact that the UOC publicly distanced itself from the Moscow Patriarchate, prays for the victory of the Ukrainian army and supports the soldiers financially.”

Archbishop Michael of Prague assured that “the Prague Orthodox diocese is offering prayers” and also protested “against the violation by the authorities of Ukraine of the rights of clergy and believers of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”