Ukraine’s court religions: conscience or LGBT?

Zelensky with members of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations. Photo: DESS

DESS head Viktor Yelenskyi has made a statement about relations between the authorities and religious organizations that may seem routine at first glance, but is in fact extremely important.

In short, here is what it is about. The head of DESS acknowledged that Ukraine’s path toward the EU faces a serious problem: churches consider LGBT and abortion to be sins, “and these norms conflict with those that exist in the West, particularly in European Union countries.”

According to him, on the one hand, there is the position of UCCRO, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which the authorities “cannot ignore.” On the other hand, there are “obligations that must be fulfilled for accession to the European Union.”

Since these contradictions cannot be resolved, someone has to “move aside.” And Yelensky already knows who it will be: UCCRO. “Although the Churches have their own ‘red lines,’ they are capable of compromise,” he said.

And there is no doubt that UCCRO will do so. Why? Because the members of this organization have long been living in compromise with their conscience. Ever since they first agreed, at the authorities’ request, to lie that there is no persecution on religious grounds in Ukraine. Ever since they began traveling to the West on propaganda “advocacy” tours, assuring people there that there are no church seizures in Ukraine and that the country enjoys “exceptional” religious freedom. Ever since they supported the law banning the country’s largest confession.

In return, UCCRO members received various perks from the authorities: deferment from mobilization, awards and presidential attention, media support, assistance in church seizures, and so on.

And now all of this will have to be repaid.

Of course, no one wants to appear before society as a woman of low social responsibility. So at first, UCCRO members will voice timid protests. But what then? Then we will hear from UCCRO the full set of arguments used by their Western counterparts who have already accepted LGBT to please the authorities: that the Church must accept everyone, that people must be loved with all their imperfections, that the biblical words about gays are outdated, and so on.

The question is not whether this will happen — Yelensky has clearly hinted that it almost certainly will. The question is when exactly these narratives will begin to spread widely across Ukraine.

And then “Moscow priests” will be branded not only for refusing to join the OCU, not only for following the Julian calendar, but also for “homophobia.”

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