In November 2025, a group of Orthodox Christian clergy and lay advocates planned a trip to Washington. They wanted to talk to members of Congress about churches being shut down in Ukraine.

Before they got there, Joe Wilson sent a letter to the Attorney General of the United States asking her to investigate their church.

Then he told his colleagues not to meet with them.

What he actually asked for

Ahead of the delegation's visit, Wilson released a letter he had sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi. It asked her to investigate "Russian Orthodox Church institutions operating within the United States, including the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR)" and to determine "whether the Russian Federation or its intelligence services have sought to recruit, leverage, influence or otherwise compromise" their independence.

ROCOR is not a foreign government office. It is a church with parishes in American towns, filled with American citizens who go to services on Sunday.

On November 17, the day before the visit, Wilson posted on X:

"The Russian Orthodox Church is not a separate religious organization but an extension of the Russian state... Evangelizing is illegal in Russia and Christians are targeted and killed in Ukraine. Members should not entertain this intelligence operation."

"Members" there means members of Congress. He was telling other lawmakers not to take the meeting.

His own party said he went too far

The pushback did not come from Democrats. It came from Republicans.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who hosted the visiting clergy, called Wilson's response "alarming and disappointing." She said he had turned a request for help into "a press campaign against them."

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz called it a "rather bigoted smear."

And the sharpest response came from Wilson's own state. South Carolina state Rep. Thomas Beach pointed out that one of the largest Orthodox Church in America parishes in the country sits in Greenville:

"These are Americans. ... Calling for the investigation of these good Christians? That's actual Soviet stuff."

Wilson walked it back. In a follow-up post, he said his comments applied "ONLY to the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) operating under the umbrella of the Moscow Patriarchate." That clarification came after the letter had already gone to the Justice Department, and after Orthodox Christians around the country had read his first post.

The part Wilson isn't wrong about

We should be straight about this, because it matters.

Patriarch Kirill, who leads the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, is believed to be a veteran of the KGB. He has blessed Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a "holy war" and said dying in that war washes away a soldier's sins. In 2023, Foreign Affairs reported that the FBI was warning Orthodox Christian clergy in the U.S. that the Russian church was trying to recruit them for Russia's intelligence services.

Wilson wasn't alone in worrying. Sen. Chuck Grassley said the same thing on the Senate floor. Rep. Don Bacon, another Ukraine supporter, said the Russian church "does take orders from Putin." One of the people who helped organize the lobbying push was tied to a lawyer working for a Russian-Ukrainian oligarch facing criminal charges in Ukraine.

All of that can be true. And none of it explains asking the Attorney General to open a file on a church denomination inside the United States.

There is a difference between saying "the Moscow patriarch is Putin's man" and asking the federal government to look into the churches themselves. The first is criticism. The second points the Justice Department at Americans because of where they worship.

He tried to stop the meeting before it happened

Notice the order of events. The letter went out before the delegation arrived. The X post went up the day before the meetings. Wilson's ask was that his colleagues refuse to hear them at all.

Those people were doing the most basic thing an American can do: showing up at the Capitol and asking their representatives for something. You can disagree with everything they said. Telling other members of Congress not to listen — and asking a prosecutor to look at them — is a different thing entirely.

They came back in December for a bigger event. This time they brought signs reading "End Representative Wilson's War on American Christian Orthodox."

Wilson told The Hill: "With open connections to former KGB agent Patriarch Kirill, the blesser of bombs, who answers to Putin, the Russian state church persecutes Christians and spreads lies to undermine support for Ukraine. It is prudent to be aware of foreign influence operations by U.S. adversaries."

Being aware is not the same as asking for an investigation.

This is the man who shouted "You lie!"

There is a reason this lands strangely coming from Joe Wilson.

In September 2009, Wilson shouted "You lie!" at President Obama in the middle of a speech to a joint session of Congress. The House voted 240 to 179 to formally disapprove of his conduct.

His whole political identity was built on the idea that he had a right to be heard, in the room, even when nobody wanted to hear him. Sixteen years later, his advice to his colleagues about a group of American Christians was: don't entertain them.

And he's not exactly easy to reach himself. Asked in March 2025 whether he would hold an in-person town hall, Wilson would not commit to a date, saying "tele-town halls are more convenient and reach thousands more immediately."

More convenient for whom?

A party that keeps turning faith into a security question

Wilson's party has spent the last year treating religious belief as something the government should screen for. House Republicans introduced a bill that would deny visas to — and deport — anyone found to "adhere to Sharia law," a measure a Cato Institute scholar told a House subcommittee was "manifestly unconstitutional." Oklahoma's Josh Brecheen cosponsored it and joined the caucus built around it after warning a town hall that the Ottoman Empire might be coming back.

Wilson's version aimed at a Christian denomination instead of a Muslim one. The move is the same: pick a faith, and ask the government to take a look.

What he could have been working on

Wilson has represented South Carolina's 2nd District since 2001. In that district, an estimated 28,199 people are projected to lose health coverage because of the budget bill he voted for and celebrated as "Promises Made, Promises Kept." Another 26,239 households there rely on SNAP to buy groceries, including 15,069 with children.

His other recent big idea was a bill to print Trump's face on a $250 bill.

So: a letter to the Attorney General about a church, and a new denomination of currency. That's what a quarter-century of seniority is being spent on.

We deserve better.

Source

GOP divided by Capitol Hill visit from Orthodox Christian advocacy group — Laura Kelly, The Hill, December 20, 2025. Additional reporting from Religion News Service via Word&Way and The Christian Post. Illustration: Samantha Wong and Greg Nash / The Hill.