UOC hierarch comments on MP’s statement about forced sterilization

MP from "Servant of the People" party Galina Tretyakova. Photo: golos.com.ua

MP from the "Servant of the People" Party Galina Tretyakova, who heads the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Social Policy, raised the topic of forced sterilization of unemployed people who have “poor quality” children in her discussions on the appropriateness of social payments to unemployed citizens. At the request of the UOJ, the hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Bogolep (Goncharenko) of Alexandria and Svetlovodsk, commented on the situation.

“In society, the MP’s words have already caused a very wide resonance,” the hierarch noted.  “And this is natural, because such statements resemble the demographic policy of fascist Germany, when ‘low-quality’ people were subject to ‘recycling’. However, such statements should first of all be evaluated from a spiritual point of view.”

First, Vladyka Bogolep stresses that forced sterilization is a direct violation of the very first commandment of God in chronology, given to man in paradise: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). 

“Of course, a person has the right to choose a celibate life, to become a monk, i.e. to abandon childbearing,” he said. “In any case, each person must take such a decision themselves. The Lord endowed everybody with free will, and the state has no right, for whatever reason, to take this will away from a person. After all, this is not about committing a crime. Even unbelievers say that there is a procreation instinct inherent in an individual, which is believed to be one of the main ones. Therefore, forced sterilization is contrary to God's plan for man and rejected by religious consciousness.”

Secondly, it is a question of dividing people into “high-quality” and “low-quality”.

“Who should do this? What are the criteria? In the Gospel we read: 'When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left' (Matt. 25, 31-33). Therefore, only God has the right to make the separation of people. Only He, the All-Seeing and also the All-Merciful, can do this unmistakably. But this separation will occur only at the end of the world. And now, each of the living can change their life to turn into righteous from a sinner or vice versa,” said the hierarch.

Thirdly, he noted, “a person who has put forward the idea of forced sterilization of ‘low-quality’ people stands on a dangerous path of appropriating for oneself what belongs only to God.”

“Therefore, the response to such rhetoric should be to exhort those who voice it to repentance and admonition,” summed up Archbishop Bogolep.

We will remind, earlier the hierarch of the UOC, Metropolitan Varsonofy (Stoliar), commented on the appeal of the MP from "European Solidarity" Alexei Goncharenko to seize the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra from the Church.

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