His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia is calling upon the Ukrainian authorities not to interfere in affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church.
May 1, 2016. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia is calling upon the Ukrainian authorities not to attempt to reform the field of religion for political reasons, as Interfax reports.
“We have to remind all the authorities (in Ukraine) that the religious beliefs of people and the life of the Church are sacred and shouldn’t be reformed in favour of the political objectives,” – said the Patriarch in an interview to television channel NTV.
According to the primate it is very dangerous “and above all never leads to the results that the initiators of this kind of pressure on the Church would have desired to achieve.”
The current actions of the Ukrainian authorities towards the believers remind him of the Soviet era when the canonical Church was persecuted and support was given to dissenters – the so-called “Renovators”.
“Unfortunately nowadays Ukraine is falling into the same trap and all that for the sake of consolidation of the society. Wasn’t it for the sake of consolidation of the society in Soviet Russia that the believers were persecuted? Socially and ideologically alien people had to accept the reforms or eliminated. If the same happens in Ukraine, it will be a catastrophe,”- the Patriarch stated.
There are three Orthodox religious organizations in Ukraine: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and the two which are not recognized in the Orthodox world – Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Since the military operations in Ukraine were launched, dozens of temples were seized by the UOC dissenters – often with the support of nationalists and local authorities.
Earlier, the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has repeatedly advocated the establishment of the local Orthodox Church in the country. One of the aims of the initiative is to separate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate.
Recently in Verkhovna Rada (Parliament of Ukraine) a draft law on the special status of religious organizations whose directing centers are located in the state recognized as the aggressor country was registered. The authors are members of the “Block of Petro Poroshenko.” The Ukrainian Orthodox Church criticized the draft law and referred to representatives of the European Union.