Dumenko: There will be a time when the UOC will be renamed

Epifaniy Dumenko. Photo: pravda.com.ua

The head of the OCU, Epifaniy Dumenko, said in an interview with Radio Svoboda that the laws of the Poroshenko era on renaming the Ukrainian Orthodox Church would be still implemented.

He said this commenting on the exclusion from the law on chaplaincy of the provision prohibiting access of the UOC chaplains to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“It was crossed out. But there is a reference to the fundamental law in which this is clearly spelled out. And there is a law on renaming the so-called Ukrainian Orthodox Church into the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. It is not being implemented now. But there will come a time when it will be enacted. The order of the Ministry of Culture on renaming has been partially suspended, and now, as far as is known, it is being considered by the Constitutional Court," Dumenko explained.

Also, the head of the OCU said that the army now definitely would not accept "Russian priests", as he calls the chaplains of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, although earlier participants in the battles in the Donbas made directly opposite statements.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the Ukrainian MPs called on the Constitutional Court to repeal the law on renaming the Church.

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