Yelensky to the author of petition "Do not ban the UOC": UOC is part of ROC

Yulia Kominko with Hos Beatitude Onuphry. Photo: Kominko’s Facebook

Yulia Kominko, the author of the petition "Do not ban the UOC", said on Facebook that she received a reply from the head of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS).

"Viktor Yelensky (and not the Prime Minister as stipulated by law) starts his answer to us, 25 thousand citizens, in all seriousness that "the DESS does consider the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (hereinafter - UOC) to be part of the Russian Orthodox Church (hereinafter - ROC) on the basis of the conclusion of the religious expertise," wrote Kominko.

In his letter, Yelensky speculates that since the UOC has not reacted harshly to the annexation of the Crimean and Berdiansk eparchies, this, they say, means that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is subordinate to the ROC. According to Yelensky, "this becomes even more obvious against the background of a harsh and unambiguous reaction from the UOC, which is accompanied by specific actions around the disputes about separate church communities with the OCU”.

Regarding the ban on the UOC, Yelensky wrote that the Cabinet's draft law No. 8371 "does not imply a ban on any religious organization, but the impossibility for religious organizations" affiliated with Moscow to operate in Ukraine.

Kominko called such logic by Yelensky "shameful".

"It would be as if I, Y.M. Kominko, would be deprived of my citizenship because I was born in the city of Alchevsk, which is now occupied, but some state body in Ukraine would conduct its expertise of the constitution of the Russian Federation, see Lugansk region as part of Russia and decide that since I was not born in Ukraine but in a foreign country (because it is written in the Russian Constitution), then I should be stripped of citizenship or restricted in rights or make my activities impossible. I would also argue that since many of those born in the Luhansk region are now collaborating with the enemy, you, my dear, should also be restricted," Yulia Kominko wrote.

As reported, the petition "Do not ban the UOC" collected over 25,000 signatures.

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