Deputies of the Kyiv City Council condemned the activities of religious organizations aimed at glorifying, propagandizing, justifying, or denying the fact of military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, numerous war crimes committed by the aggressor power, action or inaction by persons who carried out military aggression against Ukraine, inciting religious enmity, and posing a threat to the national security of Ukraine.
This decision was supported by 65 deputies, the website of the Kyiv City Council reports.
According to Vadym Vasylchuk, deputy of the Kyiv City Council, head of the Standing Committee on Education and Science, Family, Youth and Sports, numerous facts and cases where the interests of certain religious organizations conflict with public interests, public and national security have already been recorded.
“The actions of some representatives of these religious organizations contain signs of criminal offenses, which since the time of the full-scale war the Russian Federation waged against Ukraine have caused indignation and a wide negative public response. In particular, the activity of the UOC MP creates the prerequisites for enmity and intolerance towards other faiths and confessions, promotes the spread of false information, promotes the idea of a ‘Russian world,’ and fails to recognize the unequivocal fact of the Russian Federation’s military aggression against Ukraine,” Vadym Vasylchuk said.
According to him, the deputies of the Kyiv City Council adopted a decision, which provides for the restriction of holding any religious events in the capital outside the premises of religious buildings to religious organizations whose decision-making center is located on the territory of the aggressor country, or they have canonical and prayer ties with religious organizations of the aggressor power.
In addition, specialized departments of the Kyiv City State Administration were instructed to conduct an inventory of land plots and municipal property leased or otherwise used by religious organizations.
The deputy added that the Kyiv City Council has also sent an appeal to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers with a call to urgently adopt legislation aimed at banning the activities of religious organizations whose decision-making centers are located in the state that unleashed military aggression against Ukraine. At the moment, this applies to the UOC (in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate).
It should be recalled that the State Agency for Ethnic Policies and Freedom of Speech reported that the change in the UOC statute never led to severing church-canonical ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. In this regard, the agency officially recognized the “UOC” as a structural division of the Russian Orthodox Church.
