UOC KP accuses Yurash of state incursion into affairs of the Church

Andrei Yurash. Photo: Facebook

On May 29, 2019, the press center of the “Kiev Patriarchate” published an official statement regarding the commentary of the Director of the Department of Religious Affairs and Nationalities of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, Andrei Yurash, published by him on the social network.

In his message, Yurash urged to convene an extraordinary "Synod" in order to "find adequate answers" to the latest events in the OCU, which can be aimed at creating a "structure not controlled by the legitimate church center".

The UOC KP determined that such behavior of the representative of the Ministry of Culture is the intervention of the state in the internal church affairs, violating the "freedom and rights of the Church".

“From the media it became known that the director of the Department for Religious and Nationalities of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine A. Yurash on his Facebook page urged the church leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (OCU – Ed.) to convene an extraordinary emergency synod on issues that are not at all within the competence of the Department. This call is a state intervention in the internal church affairs, because it violates the freedom and rights of the Church. Such rhetoric is misleading for the society and destructive for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Therefore, we call on Mr. Yurash, as well as other civil servants, to refrain from making such statements that harm the Ukrainian Church,” the UOC KP statement said.

Earlier, “honorary patriarch” of the OCU Filaret Denisenko affirmed that the Ukrainian state is on the side of the Church that supports it and there is nothing wrong that it obliges officials to influence religious parishes in matters of changing their jurisdiction, since, in his opinion, this is a "call to obey the law".

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