Rada member urges to increase DESS staff to inspect UOC organizations

Viktor Yelensky. Photo: hromadske

MP Natalia Pipa believes that the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) needs to increase its staff and receive additional funding. According to Hromadske, the deputy claims that DESS will not have enough personnel to conduct a professional examination of a thousand Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) parishes for ties with the Russian Federation.

According to her, DESS currently has 32 employees who will need to evaluate 8,000 UOC parishes after the adoption of Law No. 8371. She believes this number of staff is insufficient.

"Otherwise, it won’t work at all, as the process for each parish will be lengthy," Pipa noted, adding that the government should address this issue through its resolutions and budget amendments.

DESS Chairman Viktor Yelensky stated that the laws “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations” and “On National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine” have placed a significant workload on the agency.

“We will strive to enhance our institutional capacity. We understand how limited resources during the war are and how difficult it will be to allocate additional ones,” Yelensky said.

As reported by the UOJ, the DESS head is ready to “sketch out a model” for how the UOC could join the OCU.

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