No one in Ukraine prohibits a religious organization by a single law.
Oleksiy Danilov, the Secretary of the Russian National Security Service of Ukraine, said this in a comment to Radio Svoboda, warning against any confusion.
“Let’s call things more correctly. If an organization has connections with the aggressor power, it has no right to work on our territory. Do a re-registration, disown the aggressor country, anathematize Putin, all those Gundyaevs and other scum who brought war to our territory today, and, please, work as you wish. No one, I emphasize once again, has the right to close any churches or institutions. But I stress once again, if you have connections with a terrorist power, if you glorify its leadership, if you glorify those Gundyaevs, Putin, and the like, then I understand (and this is not only my point of view, it’s that of any citizen) they have no right to work here. That’s it.
According to Danilov, if any organization has ties with the aggressor country, it has no right to work on the territory of Ukraine.
” If you have a statute, statutory documents – if there it is considered that you have a “godmother” (or how do they call it there?) in Moscow, then we are absolutely not okay with this. That’s all. Re-register the documents. How you continue to work there as regards canonicality and other things, whether you have a tomos, whether you have other documents, that is another matter, this is another component of this entire process,” he said.
If they fail to do this, they will not have the right to operate on the territory of our country as a religious institution. And that’s all. This applies not only to them. This applies to all institutions, Danilov emphasizes once again.
The Secretary of the National Security Council stated that, despite the fact that the UOC (MP) has a congregation of many thousands in Ukraine, the state will not turn a blind eye to the fact that they are kissing Putin on the forehead and praising Gundyaev.
“Moreover, I can say that huge mistakes were made since 1991, when a huge number of land plots were given to this institution. This happened almost all over Ukraine. And today they show off that they have income. And they believe that they belong to the Moscow Patriarchate. There is a very difficult situation. You mean it’s not their property. It is the property of a religious community located on the territory of a certain community. And it is they who should determine what church should be, with whom they should pray, how those rites and those things that are not prohibited by our legislation should take place,” said the top official.
