UOC comments on DESS's demands for a break with ROC

Metropolitan Clement. Photo: UOC

The UOC stated that the "clarifications" from the State Ethnopolitics Service (DESS) regarding how the Church should prove its separation from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) are of an abstract nature and do not carry any legal consequences, said the head of the UOC Information and Education Department, Metropolitan Clement in a comment to the UOC Information Centre.

The hierarch stated that the meeting mentioned in the letter by the DESS head, Viktor Yelensky, was originally planned between the Minister of Culture and representatives of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Its purpose was to discuss specific issues related to the further functioning of the monastery.

With the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, Metropolitan Clement, the rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary, Archbishop Silvester of Bilohorodka, a member of the Spiritual Council of the Lavra, Archimandrite Nestor, lawyers, and attorneys of the monastery participated in the meeting on behalf of the UOC.

However, instead of Tkachenko, Viktor Yelensky attended the meeting. Acting Director of the Reserve M. Ostapenko and the head of the Department for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture also participated.

According to Metropolitan Clement, the meeting had purely practical meaning: "The head of the Reserve voiced his proposals for cooperation with the Lavra monks. In turn, the monastery representative talked about the thoughts and opinions of the monastic community regarding these proposals. The lawyers of the Lavra were interested in what form of relationship the ministry considered possible to document. Compliance with legislative requirements was also discussed."

Therefore, for the hierarch, it remained unclear why Yelensky "publicized this event as a meeting between the DESS leadership and members of the UOC episcopate".

According to him, "Mr Yelensky expressed certain claims to the UOC but never explained how they are related to the termination of the agreement on the use of Lavra facilities. When asked to specify what specific claims the state body he heads has regarding the statutory documents of the UOC or the specific actions and statements of its leadership, the DESS head referred to incorrect publications in the press and video content on social networks, which, of course, was insufficient."

That is why Yelensky was offered to "formulate specific proposals that would help eliminate such contradictions and expand the range of cooperation between the museum institution and the monastery".

However, as Metropolitan Clement writes, "In response to a direct question from the Lavra lawyers about whether achieving consensus on all the issues raised by Mr Yelensky would mean a change in the Ministry of Culture's policy towards the Lavra monastery, the termination of legal proceedings, and the conclusion of relevant agreements for the use of Lavra premises by both the monastery itself and the Theological Academy, no answer was given by either Mr Viktor Yelensky or his colleagues present at the meeting."

The bishop pointed out that even fulfilling DESS’s demands will not have any legal consequences in Church-state relations.

"From the text of the letter... it can be concluded that the proposals listed in it are merely the result of the DESS head's personal reflections on the issue of Church-state interaction in Ukraine. However, these reflections do not contain any guarantees of expanding the trajectory of this interaction. DESS has written copies of well-reasoned positions on all the questions that required clarification from the UOC.

The situation is such that regardless of the UOC's responses to DESS’s requests, this ministry has never demonstrated readiness to guarantee the removal of the restrictions currently experienced by UOC believers regarding the implementation of their constitutional right to freedom of religious beliefs, including concerns about the threat of turning the Kyiv-Pechersk Monastery into a total museum," concluded Metropolitan Clement.

Earlier, DESS published requirements for the UOC regarding its separation from the ROC.

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