Ban on Orthodox Church in Ukraine off the table, says Parliament’s Speaker
26-09-2023
Metropolitan Onuphry confirms the liturgy in the Lavra monastery in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo news.church.ua
Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada thinks there is not enough support for a ban on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). For this reason, the bill is off the table.
A ban on the Moscow-affiliated church needs 226 votes. “It seems to me that there are not yet 226 votes around such an important legislative act”, Stefanchuk says, according to Raskolam. It would only “please the Russian Federation” if such a draft bill fails in the house, Stefanchuk said.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is officially connected with the Moscow Patriarchate in Russia. Within the Orthodox system, national churches are independent but not autonomous (“autocephalous”). Although the UOC has tried to cut all ties with the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian government is still suspicious of the church, since its legitimacy depends partly on a “criminal regime”. The Russian Patriarch is Kirill, a staunch supporter of President Putin.
In 2019, the Ukrainian government stimulated the Patriarchate of Constantinople to recognise a new church in the country, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Many parishes in the country have moved to that new community. However, it is far from clear what the proportions are now. Until recently, the UOC was by far the largest religion in Ukraine.
One MP, Mykyta Poturaev, regretted the decision of the Speaker to take the ban from the agenda. This has to do with “agents of influence of a particular church” in the parliament, he says, according to RISU.
He thinks party leaders should make sure that the 226 votes will be assured when there is a vote.
State terrorism
Another MP, Evgeniy Karas, demanded a list of Members of Parliament who are against the ban on the UOC. He said he would “beat up” every people’s deputy who refuses to vote for the prohibition of the UOC. “Of course, I won’t have enough for everyone. But I will set an example,” says Karas, he said according to SPZH.
On the other hand, the Orthodox theology professor from Serbia, Darko Djogo, speaks about Ukrainian “state terrorism against the UOC”. He says the Metropolitan of the new OCU, Epiphany Dumenko, uses aggression towards his brother from the UOC.
Djogo spoke at a conference in Belgrade, where several Serbian theologians and priests spoke, reports SPZH.
The US Senator Randal Howard Paul criticised the Ukrainian authorities for their attitude to religion. On Fox Business, he criticised the Ukrainian authorities for their attitude to the UOC, SPZH reported.
“Ukraine banned the political parties, invaded churches, arrested priests and so on. It isn’t a democracy, it’s a corrupt regime,” the senator said.
Lavra
Around the Lavra monastery in Kyiv, the situation is still insecure and full of tension. The UOC clergy still occupy the complex. Last Sunday, Metropolitan Onuphry did the liturgy there. On Monday, the UOC Synod complained that believers are prohibited from revering their shrines. It is full of “shame and lawlessness”, the Synod said, according to SPZH.
The Ukrainian government had rented the age-old monastery to the church in 1991 but suddenly stopped the contract earlier this year. Pilgrims from outside who come to pray in the neighbourhood of the relics in the Lavra are kept from going in.
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