Ministry of Culture delays for a year the registration of UOC's charitable mission

It took a year for the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine to register the statute of the mission of the Synodal Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for Social and Humanitarian Issues, allowing the UOC to engage in humanitarian and charitable aid, reports UNIAN.

The head of the Synodal Department of the UOC for Social and Humanitarian Issues, Archpriest Vladislav Dikhanov said that the delay in registration of the statute by the Ministry of Culture has led to the fact that people in need did not receive humanitarian aid for tens of millions of hryvnias. "All the hardships of war were brought to the shoulders of volunteers, but with the deterioration of the economic situation the number of needy people has increased. Many international organizations were willing to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but because they are used to working with legal entities, we cannot cooperate with them. If it were not for all the bureaucratic delays, we would have been able to help many more people. We are talking about tens of millions of hryvnias in lost aid and about hundreds of shipping containers with basic necessities and medicines. It was meant for the displaced, the wounded and other victims of the hostilities in the east of Ukraine," stressed Fr. Vladislav.

"The Social and Humanities Department was established to help the needy segments of the population, but the Ministry of Culture, unnecessarily violating the terms of registration of the statute, actually blocked its work. All documents required for registration were submitted to the Ministry of Culture in May 2015, but the statute was registered by the officials just now. The reasons for such one-year delay are not clear, because according to the law, registration of the statute of a religious organization must be carried out in a period of 1 to 3 months. Moreover, a similar statute of another Synodal department was registered by the Ministry of Culture in January 2015. As a result of inactivity of the officials, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been unable for more than a year to be fully engaged in charitable activities through its humanitarian mission," said the head of the Synodal Law Department of the UOC, Archpriest Alexander Bakhov.

Recall that, according to the UOC Information Centre, at the moment there are still 11 statutes under consideration by the Ministry of Culture, which were submitted for registration a year and a half ago.

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