Hundreds of people and its buildings were searched.. Ukraine orders an investigation into the activities of a church linked to Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that Ukraine's top security officials have ordered an investigation into the activities of a branch of the Orthodox Church historically linked to Moscow.

Zelensky said the investigation would look into whether the Moscow branch of the church had the right to operate at one of Ukraine's most sacred sites, the Pechersk Lavra complex in Kyiv.

The Russian Orthodox Church strongly supported the Russian war in Ukraine 9 months ago.

"We must create conditions so that no parties dependent on the aggressor country (Russia) can manipulate Ukrainians and weaken Ukraine from within," Zelensky said - in a video speech.

In Ukraine, the Moscow-linked church officially cut ties with the Russian Orthodox Church last May, but many Ukrainians still do not trust it, accusing it of secret cooperation with Russia.

The discussion, which was conducted by senior security officials, underscored the importance with which Zelensky and other leaders still view the influence of the Moscow-linked church among ordinary Ukrainians.

Orthodox Christians make up the majority of Ukraine's 43 million people, and competition has been fierce since the collapse of Soviet rule between the Church linked to Moscow and the independent Ukrainian Church that declared shortly after independence.

Zelensky said the government would submit a bill to parliament banning religious groups "associated with centers of influence in Russia".

He added that measures would be taken to protect against "disruptive activity of the Russian special services in the Ukrainian religious environment," and church property, including its use of the Pechersk Lavra complex, would also be examined.

And the Ukrainian Security Service said - last week - that it had searched 350 buildings belonging to the Church linked to Russia and had conducted searches involving 850 people.

He stated that he had found "suspicious" Russian citizens, large sums of cash and pro-Russian literary works, during a raid on the Pechersk Lavra complex that was denounced by Russia.