DESS expert: Activists needed to expel UOC from churches

"Public activists" near the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Photo: raskolam.net

A member of the Expert Council of the State Ethno-Religious Affairs Service (DESS), Oleksandr Sahan, stated that since state services are failing to fulfill their duties and are not expelling believers from churches and monasteries by any means necessary, “public activists” need to be involved in this process. He made this statement in an interview with Ukrinform.

Commenting on the situation surrounding the Pochaiv Lavra, Sahan claimed that local authorities and law enforcement in Pochaiv sympathize with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). According to him, this suggests they will delay the process of expelling the monks from the monastery.

The expert argued that “the refusal to allow the commission onto the monastery’s territory is not an issue stemming from the law passed in August 2024; it is an issue of enforcing existing legislation.”

“No one wants to appear in the media over this because it’s impossible to predict how the scandal might end. There have been cases when officials acted in accordance with the law, only to be punished for it. There are also certain sympathies toward the UOC-MP, particularly in the case of the Pochaiv Lavra. I do not exclude the possibility that some representatives of local law enforcement hold such sympathies,” Sahan said.

The GESS representative believes this situation is “a clear indicator of whether the state is functioning as an institution.” He claims that representatives of the UOC are not defending their legal rights but instead are allegedly violating the law and dictating terms to state authorities that are attempting to seize their sacred sites.

Based on these conclusions, the expert stated that it would be appropriate to involve “public activists” in the process.

“It turns out that public activists are needed to essentially force them [the authorities] to fulfill their duties,” Sahan said.

As previously reported by the Union of Orthodox Journalists, former leader of the UNA-UNSO and head of the “Brotherhood” party, Dmytro Korchynsky, called for active public action, arguing that the law passed by the Verkhovna Rada banning the UOC would not fully resolve the issue. The radical stated that he possesses methods for seizing UOC churches.

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