UOC hierarch comments on the decision of Kyiv Regional Council to ban UOC

Metropolitan Clement of Nizhyn. Photo: news.church.ua

A permanent member of the Holy Synod of the UOC, Chairman of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the UOC, Metropolitan Clement of Nizhyn and Pryluky, commented on the decision of the Kyiv Regional Council to ban the UOC and stated that it is impossible to ban the Church, the hodihitria telegram channel reports.

“It is very significant that one of the first decisions of the regional council after the re-election of its leadership was the traditional PR on the religious issue for members of the party, created by the odious oligarch Poroshenko. Perhaps we will someday live to see the time when deputies stop making legally insignificant statements about churches, but start fulfilling their immediate duties instead, for which, in fact, they are paid salaries from the taxpayer's budget. Perhaps someday this regional council will have the courage to declare a total ban on the territory of the region of drug addiction, drunkenness, human trafficking, bribery and extortion, which are a real threat to state security, as the leaders of central European organizations have repeatedly told Ukrainians,” the bishop noted.

According to him, so far, we are observing an unfortunate fact – de-communization has affected only monuments and street signs. It did not at all touch the consciousness of the people's representatives, whose mentality is stuck in the paradigms of the Soviet Union with its totalitarian bans on religion.

“Therefore, the result will be the same as in the USSR, since it is impossible to outlaw the Church. Prohibitions make the Church even more perfect in its earthly dimension, crystallizes the best moral patterns in it,” added Metropolitan Clement.

The hierarch of the UOC underscored that “Jesus Christ did not curse his enemies, but prayed for their forgiveness. The answer of Christians to the decision of the regional council should be the same – we need to pray for those deputies so that God forgives them for their actions because, as it is said in the Gospel, they do not know what they are doing.

As previously reported by the UOJ, the Kyiv Regional Council "banned" the UOC.

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