UOC Bishop: Neither Ukraine nor people need a ban on the Church, why push it?

Archbishop Victor (Kotsaba). Photo: vz.ua

The Vicar of the Kyiv Metropolis, Archbishop Viktor (Kotsaba), in an article for politica.com.ua, asks why it is necessary to promote laws to ban the UOC given that neither the people nor the country need them.

“From the first day of the war, the UOC clearly defined its position, which was expressed in the full support of its people. Consequently, the top leadership of the country officially declared that there are no Russian churches in Ukraine, but only Ukrainian ones. Back in March, Andriy Yermak, head of the Presidential Office, argued that ideas of religious conflicts over the 'Russian Church' in Ukraine were 'dispersed by mercenary idiots' to create internal conflicts. Mikhaylo Podolyak, adviser to the chairman of the Presidential Chamber, also warned about the danger of a religious conflict. He said that the UOC has a fundamentally different position from the ROC, that the UOC 'has already made all the decisions that will benefit Ukraine'," said the hierarch of the UOC.

Archbishop Victor cited the words of the head of the legal department of the UOC, Archpriest Alexander Bakhov, that “since the beginning of the war, about 70 illegal decisions have been made by local governments 'to ban' the UOC" and that “the purpose of such prohibitions is to create an artificial information field that society ostensibly needs the prohibition of the UOC, although in reality it is not so.”

Also, according to the hierarch of the UOC, the laws banning the UOC will become an obstacle to European integration and will be successfully challenged in international institutions.

“This is what MP Nikita Poturaev says: 'We will receive a lawsuit to the European Court of Human Rights. We are guaranteed to lose this case, it will be a shame for us as a state and society.' It is clear that such a scenario cannot be beneficial for the state and the current authorities. Perhaps someone else wants to profit on it. So far, we can only agree with the words of one of the participants in a recent press conference: 'I don’t know who and why gave the command to rock the boat inside the country, but this boat is being rocked',” he summed up.

As the UOJ reported earlier, Archbishop Victor said that the laws banning the UOC would become an obstacle to European integration.

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