Expert: Renaming the Church is savagery alien to today's Europe

Ruslan Bortnik. Photo: screenshot of the video of First Cossack youtube channel

Ruslan Bortnik, Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, on the air of the Right to Faith program on the First Cossack Youtube channel, said that renaming the Church is savagery, and he does not know such precedents in modern Europe.

“Renaming a church is the wildest thing; I don't know any similar examples in the history of modern Europe. Prohibiting – yes, but renaming ... Now an element of intimidation is employed, and the journalistic and expert environment seems more locked and engaged in self-policy. There is less freedom of public expression now than it was three years ago. If a chop has been made of the US president, how should a grass-root person feel?” Bortnik said.

Regarding the bill No. 5143 of the Servant of the People Party, which contains a mechanism for the liquidation of churches "for collaboration", Ruslan Bortnik noted that this is not a bill but a political declaration that does not comply with the concepts of democracy.

“From the point of view of the Constitution and democracy, this is not permissible. In fact, we have new ‘wonderful’ times, when doublethink is striding by leaps and bounds. The law cannot be written in this form, it must be clearly determined. None of the provisions should allow doublethink and different interpretations. This is being done deliberately, this is not a law but a political declaration, a new manifesto of the Communist Party," Bortnik added.

Let us remind you that on February 18, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine registered bill No. 5101, designed to amend the current Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations. The bill is posted on the official website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The initiators are Petro Poroshenko and the European Solidarity Party. According to the bill, a religious organization “threatening the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine” may be liquidated.

On February 24, MPs from the Servant of the People party introduced the bill No. 5143, which provides for criminal liability for religious organizations for cooperation with an aggressor state or non-controlled territories.

As the UOJ previously reported, the UOC hierarch spoke about the reaction of believers to lawlessness against the Church. 

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