On February 4, under the chairmanship of the President of the Ukrainian Bible Society, Hryhoriy Komendant, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations met with the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk.
Representatives of religious organizations elaborated on their comments on a number of legislative initiatives. They also spoke about the inexpediency of ratifying the Istanbul Convention, the need to ban commercialized surrogacy, improve the government’s family policy, and promote unity of Ukrainian society in the face of Russian aggression, according to the Slovo pro Slovo outlet.
Archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Yevstratiy (Zorya), explaining the position of the Council against the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, stressed that churches and religious organizations are actively involved in helping victims of domestic violence. Among other things, they created an interfaith website, “Stop Violence!” as well as developed a handbook for priests, and lobbied for the adoption of relevant legislation in 2017, remaining ready to continue working to enhance it.
At the same time, Yevstratiy added, the religious community does not accept the ideological burden of the Istanbul Convention, which promotes gender ideology. The community advocates the development of national legislation, the cleric stressed.
UOC Metropolitan Klyment (Vecherya) of Nizhyn and Pryluky criticized the government-submitted draft Law “On Assisted Reproductive Technologies” (No. 6475), as well as the alternative bills (No. 6475-1 and No. 6475-2), which proposes to legalize surrogacy, as significant remarks to its text by the religious community were not taken into account by the authors.
“Of course, we want the demographic crisis in Ukraine to end, but rightly so – with the support of families, responsible motherhood and fatherhood,” said Bishop Vitaliy Kryvytskyi, Ordinary of the Kyiv-Zhytomyr Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine.
Archpriest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Fr. Oleksa Petriv, stressed that the parliament should seriously consider whether it is appropriate to cover this immoral, shameful activity, which is essentially trafficking in Ukrainian children and sexual exploitation of women, with slogans about filling the budget through commercial surrogacy services.
“It is necessary to improve the state family policy, but to this end we need to create the Ministry of Family, Children and Youth,” said the UGCC priest.
