Metropolitan Hilarion tells the Pope about discrimination of the UOC

During the meeting of Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk with Pope Francis of Rome, the state of affairs of the canonical Church in Ukraine was spoken about. It is reported by the site of DECR.

Metropolitan Hilarion drew the Pontiff’s attention to the situation in Ukraine where the Verkhovna Rada had been submitted the bills, each of them being directed at the discrimination of the UOC. As the DECR Chairman emphasized, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has the status of self-government within the Moscow Patriarchate, it is independent in terms of administration, but it maintains a prayerful connection with the fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church. The efforts of the authors of two of these bills are aimed at declaring the Ukrainian Orthodox Church not the national Church of Ukraine, which it is, uniting the majority of Orthodox believers of the country, but rather the foreign religious organization, whose activities require special coordination with the authorities.

Another bill aims to legitimize the practice of illegal seizures of temples of the canonical Church, which resulted in the takeover of more than 40 temples.