UOC hierarch: New govt. needs to restore constitutional rights of believers

Архиепископ Боярский Феодосий (Снигирев). Фото: Православная жизнь

For the sake of restoring peace in the country's religious life, the team of the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky needs to restore the constitutional rights of believers, Archbishop Theodosy (Snigirev), a vicar of the Kiev Metropolis of the UOC, said in an interview with the “Vesti” online edition.

“For peace to prevail in the country's religious life, to stop the seizures of churches and the incitement of inter-faith hatred, the team of the new President needs to restore the constitutional rights of believers and the rule of law in the country. Not to interfere in matters of faith on anyone's side, as it has been done for the past five years, but to become the guarantor of their constitutional rights” the hierarch stressed.

He added that law enforcement agencies should be guided by the law and execute the decisions of the courts, and the officials who incited the inter-faith enmity and violated the rights of believers should at least be removed from their posts.

Earlier, Vladyka Theodosy said that the Ukrainian people can be united only by excluding everything that separates us, and raising to a pedestal what unites. “If we all – the Church, society, all religious confessions – want to to build a peaceful, tolerant society in Ukraine, if we want to preserve the unity of our people, we need not to divide it but to connect it. We need to exclude everything that separates us and raise to a pedestal everything that unites us. This is so obvious, these are such axioms of social and spiritual life that it is strange that we have to speak about this at all,” Archbishop Theodosy explained.

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