DESS head: There isn’t a single word about UOC in bill 8371
Viktor Yelensky. Photo: Unian
The DESS head Viktor Yelensky in a comment to the Voice of America assured that bill 8371 on the UOC ban has nothing to do with the UOC, and those who criticise it, do it for money.
"Of course, if people get very big money for discrediting Ukraine and this bill, it is profitable for them to distort its content," Yelensky said and assured that "in reality, there is not a single word in the law about the ban and the UOC-MP".
According to him, the law only talks about religious organisations with a centre in the aggressor country.
"If there are such ties, they are established by a special religious expertise," Yelensky said. According to him, the State Ethnopolitics Service sends such denominations a prescription to remove the ties, and "if such ties are not broken, the State Ethnopolitics Service files a lawsuit."
"This means there is no talk of a ban here. But, of course, there is a strong demand from both society and the Church itself that there should be no ties with the Moscow Patriarchate, which is directly involved in the war of the Russian Federation in Ukraine," stressed Elensky.
As earlier reported, according to Yelensky, the state already has a plan to fight the UOC but he will not reveal it.
Read also
Vance praises Georgian patriarch's work
The U.S. vice president spoke positively about the role of the primate of the Georgian Church in preserving Christian values in the country.
UOC Social Department donates gaming consoles to children’s hospitals in Kyiv
The UOC Social Department delivered PlayStation 5 sets to seven pediatric hospitals in Kyiv, with a total value of 483,453 hryvnias.
Authorities seize icons and reliquary from Krupytskyi Monastery nuns
After the takeover of the UOC’s Krupytskyi Monastery, officials are preventing the sisters from recovering a reliquary and an icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.
Mukachevo Eparchy priest receives commendations from AFU
Archpriest Vasyl Lomaha was presented with commendations from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the “Berehove Union of Mothers and Wives of ATO Participants.”
Court ruling bars Metropolis of Moldova faithful from entering a church
After a decision by the Supreme Court of Justice, police blocked Orthodox Church of Moldova faithful from accessing the church in the village of Dereneu.
Persecuted UOC community responds to OCU over claims of “discrediting Ukraine”
UOC parishioners say they have the right to appeal to international bodies when their rights are violated.