UOC lawyer: Bishops being pressured into attending "unification council"

Head of the Legal Department of the UOC Protopriest Alexander Bakhov

"To date, there have been efforts by various forces to put pressure on UOC bishops. This is evidenced by a number of pickets and unlawful acts outside UOC diocesan offices and bishop residences. (...) Furthermore, UOC bishops have been summoned for a talk at the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine]. Given their consistency, simultaneity and mass scale, these acts are aimed at pressuring bishops and forcing them to participate in the so-called 'unification council'," the UOC head lawyer Protopriest Alexander Bakhov said in an interview with the UOC Information and Education Department on November 20.

"By organizing a project such as 'the unified local Ukrainian church,' the state is providing for the freedom of conscience right of a certain part of Ukrainian citizens while violating the rights of the other part which belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," the priest said.

The recent pickets staged by autocephaly supporters outside various eparchial offices were "clearly of an artificial and centralized nature", like the one outside the residence of Archbishop Feodosy of Boyarka, which "immediately" broke up before the police arrived, the lawyer said. "Apparently, they were tipped off," he noted.

The pressure on the canonical Church bishops was "expected to a degree," given that the UOC episcopate had refused to support the Patriarchate of Constantinople and Ukrainian government's decision to create an autocephalous church in this country, the priest said.

Analyzing recent provocations, the lawyer drew attention to their discrediting nature.

“Look at what is written on those signs, why the picketers wear balaclavas, why the property is harmed, why are they all right now? Father Alexander wonders. “What are the personal data of the bishops published for? They say to the bishops that supposedly “we invite you to a conversation.” But the conversation, in the context of what is the conversation? This is, in a certain way, psychological pressure. ”

In his opinion, given the systematic nature, simultaneity, mass character, these actions are aimed at the bishops in order to pressure and force them to participate in the so-called “unification Council”.

“Such events are to some extent expected, since the episcopate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at the Bishops’ Council of November 13, 2018, very clearly defined its position regarding recent events and in particular the actions of the Constantinople Patriarchate on the canonical territory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” the lawyer said.

Father Alexander also explained that a legal way should be taken to respond to provocations: “In the case of unlawful actions of “activists”, you should contact the law enforcement agencies: call the police, write statements, complain, and record all cases.”

As the UOJ reported, a number of provocations have been made in the UOC eparchies recently: in the Nezhin eparchy, local authorities broke into the eparchy’s premises and began to demand support for autocephaly; in the Zaporozhye eparchy, Tomos supporters held a picket shouting slogans of aggressive content. In addition, the Volyn mass media published on their websites data on the residence of representatives of the UOC episcopate.

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