His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy urged the President of Ukraine to stop the interference of officials in the affairs of the Church

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy urged the President of Ukraine to stop the interference of officials in the affairs of the Church Блаженнейший митрополит Онуфрий призвал Президента Украины прекратить вмешательство чиновников в дела Церкви print version March 22, 2019 20:18 March 21, 2019 The Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Most Blessed Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine Onuphrius took part in the meeting of the President of Ukraine PA Poroshenko with the members of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO), held at the initiative of the head of state. His Beatitude Bishop was accompanied by the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan of Borispol and Brovarsky, Anthony , as well as Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, Deputy Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In his speech, PA Poroshenko emphasized the need to protect the principles of religious freedom. “I, as President, as the guarantor of constitutional rights, will do everything possible to protect religious freedom in Ukraine. The issue of religious freedom should be the subject of our joint activities, ”the head of state said, adding that“ violence can never be a way to solve problems. ” The Most Blessed Metropolitan Onufry, thanking P.A. Poroshenko for the opportunity to meet, said: “In these blessed days of Great Lent, the Church calls us to repentance, restraint, prayer and reconciliation with our neighbors. The task of the Church is to take care of the spiritual, moral, to lead people to God, to preach love, forgiveness and peace. The task of the state - to take care of the material side of human life, to monitor compliance with the laws and the like. However, during these days of Great Lent, as well as for a long time before it began, events are happening in the religious sphere of our country that distress us. I mean the seizure of churches, the intervention of government representatives in church affairs and other offenses. In particular, the heads of village councils, city councils, heads of administrations, deputies convene a meeting of territorial communities and arrange illegal voting to change the subordination of a religious community. This is directly contrary to the Law of Ukraine No. 2683 (draft 4128-e), where it is said that only a religious community with two-thirds vote can do it, and not a territorial one. This leads to the fact that they forcefully seize our churches, drive our communities into the streets, our communities are forced to pray in rural homes. In particular, our communities in Volyn serve in the houses: in the villages, Nychegovka, Krasnovolya, Telchi, Godomichi (this is the Manevichsky district); in the villages of Zhidychin, Klepachy, Berestyane, Kulchin (this is Lutsk region), Berestechko, Sands, Zvinyache, Skobelka (this is Gorokhov district). And this is not all data only for the Volyn region. There are a lot of such cases in different areas. The police often do not act, just passively watching. I want to emphasize that it is not we who seize temples in ourselves, it is not our communities that cut off the castles on their temples, as some people sometimes say in our media. This comes to strangers for the Church people who did not go to the temple and do not go. One of the last egregious cases was in the town of Baranovka in the Zhytomyr region, where on Forgiveness Sunday the deputy from the Radical Party Oleg Kovalsky gathered a “veche”, after which he sent about 400 people to take over the UOC church in honor of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. As a result, the crowd rushed to the temple. Parishioners, who in the amount of about 150 people were in the temple, were beaten, thrown from the church stairs and pushed out of the church fence. And for such illegal actions, provoking inter-religious hatred, for an attempt to capture, none of the officials is not responsible. But the priest of our Church, who protects our churches and defends the rule of law - I mean Archpriest Viktor Zemlyanoy from the Rivne diocese, is under pressure - they opened criminal proceedings against him and handed over suspicion under articles No. 161 (part 1) and number 300 (part 1 ). All charges are artificial. Also try to choose a measure of restraint for him. As we know, the pressure on our priest is on the orders of the head of the SBU in the Rivne region, Bedry Vasily Vasilyevich. In other regions of Ukraine there are similar criminal proceedings. We regard them as ordered, as a way of putting pressure on the clergy and believers of our Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and we believe that such persecution in a democratic society is unacceptable and violates the right to freedom of religion. False information about the transfer of UOC religious communities in the amount of about 450 parishes is disseminated in the media. However, according to our data, only 42 parishes decided to go to the PCU, of which 9 parishes went without a priest. The remaining 55 so-called "voluntary transitions" are characterized by cutting locks, beating believers and in fact are captures. 137 cases were registered where the territorial community voted to transfer to the HCV against the will of the religious community. In these cases, our faithful with the priests remain and serve in their churches, although the local authorities reported that the community allegedly passed. The facts of threats, intimidation, pressure on the clergymen of the UOC, discrimination and other violations of the rights and freedoms of our Church have already come to the attention of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and published in their report of 12.03.2019. Everything that is happening now in villages in different regions of Ukraine has a negative effect on both the authority of the authorities and the authority of the President. Therefore, I would ask you, Pyotr Alekseevich, to instruct local officials to stop artificially initiating a change of subordination. It will stop conflicts among people. I am sure that everything that is now happening around our Church, including among Orthodox Christians in general, is not the way we should go. This is definitely not the path that will lead us to unity. It is necessary to recognize the fallacy of this path, to draw conclusions from the mistakes, and look for other ways of church unity. Capturing and dragging wards only discards the unity process decades ago. We have already experienced this in the early 1990s. Therefore, if the situation cannot be completely rectified, then at least one should start by not worsening it. Mr. President! I want you to understand us correctly. We, that is, our Ukrainian Orthodox Church - for Ukraine, for the whole and united state. For peace, for peace, understanding and unity among our people. We have always defended it and declared. All that I cited above only harms the state. Make it stop. I am sure it is in your power! ” Responding to the words of the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the head of state said that neither he nor any regional state administration gave instructions on the places for the transfer of churches from one denomination to another. P.A. Poroshenko advised in the above cases to go to court, and also offered His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine Onufry to hold a separate meeting to discuss these crisis issues. His Beatitude Bishop Onufry conveyed to the head of state a list of captured temples and a description of other facts of offenses committed against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The president instructed his assistants to study the situation and respond on a case-by-case basis. At the end of the official part of the event, P.A. Poroshenko with His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine, informs the Information and Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with reference to the DECR UOC website .