Moscow Patriarch Kirill has urged to take measures and support the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (in unity with the MP) against the backdrop of Ukraine’s plans to adopt new legislation on religious organizations, whose centers of influence are based in Moscow.
With such a message, he addressed religious figures and representatives of international organizations, the Russian Orthodox Church press service reports.
“I ask you to take all possible measures to impede continued mass violations of the religious rights of believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in particular through discussions, within the framework of the agenda of the organization you head, the drafting of specialized reports, as well as sending special missions to verify facts,” reads the statement, addressing UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
The UOC (MP) argues that their church is “in fact independent and sovereign”, and that someone “is deliberately trying to portray it as the ROC, and its clerics and believers, who are citizens of Ukraine – as FSB assets.”
On Thursday, the Verkhovna Rada passed at first reading a bill that provides legal grounds for banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Bill 8371 is in line with the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of January 2023.
The government proposed a model, under which the State Service for Ethnopolicies and Freedom of Conscience, through expert assessment, shall establish whether a certain religious organization has a decision-making center located in Russia. After that, an order shall be issued to eliminate the violation. If no action is taken in this regard, the government body goes to court, asking judges to ban the relevant religious organization. The expert assessment of the UOC (MP) Statute, run in January 2023, established that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (in unity with the MP) remains subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church.
