Religion

Yesterday, resorting to the most flagrant violations of the Law of Ukraine "On the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine" and to the mass “button punching”, the Verkhovna Rada voted on the so-called “anti-church” law no. 4128-d, discriminating and infringing the rights of the majority of confessions and religious organizations of Ukraine and, above all, of the only canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church headed by His Beatitude Onufriy, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine.

This bill was written at the dictation of the Presidential Administration and the only reason for its appearance is to please the presidential election campaign, under pressure from law enforcement authorities and local authorities to ensure a massive transition of parishes from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church to an artificially created Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

We expect that pressure on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church will only be increasing, since the President needs to show how the parishes of the UOC en masse move to the pro-presidential church created by him. Such steps will lead to incitement of inter-church strives and to consequences tragic for the state.

This is evidenced by a statement made by representative of Petro Poroshenko Bloc’s faction during the today's conciliation council in the parliament saying that during the week it is necessary to adopt two bills aimed at changing the name of the only legal and canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and at legalizing transitions of UOC parishes to the church "of Poroshenko’s patriarchy" under pressure from the Security Service of Ukraine.

Our party will defend the unity and interests of believers of the only canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church by all legal means. 

The election of Metropolitan Epiphanius as the “primate” of the so-called Local Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a personal defeat of President Petro Poroshenko, who insisted on electing one of the apostates from canonical Orthodoxy, Metropolitan Simeon.

By the way, in 2014, Petro Poroshenko already attempted to “push through” Simeon’s candidacy when the new head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was elected — then Poroshenko personally asked me to support this choice. In addition, Poroshenko carefully conceals his agreements with Phanar: after all, this is not about true autocephaly, but rather about an attempt to put the Ukrainian Orthodoxy under the command of Constantinople and in parallel to create a “puppet” Church managed from the Presidential Administration.

Nevertheless, we are experiencing dramatic times that will definitely be gone and left in the past, and Poroshenko’s shady undertaking called the “local church” is set up for following the fate of the renovationist Church in the Soviet Union. They say that history repeats itself as a tragedy and as farce. We have endured the tragedy. It seems that this time meddling of the authorities in church affairs has turned into a farce.

Today, at 8 a.m., the Security Service of Ukraine and the prosecutor's office, supported by special police forces, began searches in an out-of-town household of Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Pressure is being put on the vicar of Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel. Investigative activities are carried out into a completely void and obviously fabricated case. Moreover, His Grace Pavel is not the only one who is being persecuted. In recent weeks, we have witnessed unprecedented pressure from law enforcement officers on representatives of the hierarchy and priesthood of our Mother Church — for the sole purpose of committing treason and moving from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the single local Ukrainian Orthodox Church (SLUOC) newly created by Poroshenko’s administration.

“Conversations” are under way, criminal cases are opened. I am sure that all these cases will fall apart completely at the pre-trial stage, as well as hundreds, if not thousands, of other cases fabricated by the authorities against unwanted people and people opposing the authorities.