No letters to ROC from UOC clergy will help, DESS expert

Dmytro Vovk. Photo: a video screenshot from Viche

Letters from UOC parishes declaring their withdrawal from the Russian Orthodox Church have no legal significance until the ROC officially amends its documents. This was stated by Dmytro Vovk, a leading legal expert in religious law and member of the DESS Expert Council, in an interview with the program Viche.

Commenting on the recent words of the head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS), Viktor Yelensky, that a letter from the priests of UOC religious organizations to the ROC is sufficient for recognition of their exit, Vovk emphasized that such a position is "a rather free interpretation of the law".

'If this quote is accurate, it does not follow from the text of the law," the expert noted. "Even if it concerns a statement by the Primate of the UOC, Metropolitan Onuphry, it is not enough. The law defines more than one criterion of affiliation."

The lawyer reminded that Ukrainian legislation has a norm according to which the affiliation of a religious organization with structures recognized as a «center of influence of the aggressor state» is determined not only by internal statements but also by external recognition from the relevant structures.

"This means that until the ROC changes its Statute and other official documents and renounces the recognition of the UOC as its part, formally from the legal point of view, the UOC is considered affiliated. And here no statements and no letters will help," concluded the DESS Expert Council member.

As reported by the UOJ, the DESS expert stated that UOC ban contradicts international law.

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