VR MP: We’ll pass two laws at once to ban ROC and simplify transfers to OCU

Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy Mykyta Poturaev. Photo: Ukrinform

Verkhovna Rada deputy from the Servant of the People faction, chairman of the parliamentary committee on humanitarian and information policy Mykyta Poturaev said that MPs plan to simultaneously vote for bill No. 8221 on banning the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), its branches and organizations in Ukraine and for draft law No. 8262 on improving the legal regulation of the activities of religious organizations, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

The MP explained that the draft law No. 8262 is aimed at simplifying the transitions from the UOC to the OCU. This document was developed before the war, therefore, in the current wording, the following definition was added to it: “the state recognizes the right of the religious administration to be subordinate in canonical and organizational matters to any religious centers operating in Ukraine and abroad, except for foreign religious organizations whose activities are prohibited on the territory Ukraine in accordance with the Law.

“In order for it to work effectively at these moments (the law that concerns transitions), Mykola Kniazhytsky and his colleagues developed another bill (No. 8221), which prohibits the activities of the ROC in our country. We hope that they will go as a set (to the voting hall). We will immediately kill two birds with one stone: we will put an end to the existence of the ROC and organizations that continue to be affiliated with it in any way, and we will simplify the transitions,” Mykyta Poturaev emphasized.

As the UOJ reported, on December 1, 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky announced in his video message that the National Security and Defense Council decided to submit to the Verkhovna Rada for consideration "a bill on the impossibility of activities in Ukraine of religious organizations, which are affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation."

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