The DESS explained the reasons for the refusal to armor the clergy of the UOC from mobilization

The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) has clarified the position of the agency regarding the absence of reservation procedures against mobilization for clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The main reason was named as the failure to include religious organizations of the UOC in the list of enterprises and institutions that are critically important for the functioning of the economy and vital activities of the population.

As «Suspilne Khmelnitsky» reports, Viktor Voynalovich , the first deputy chairman of the DESS, stressed in his comments to the media that only those organizations whose charters have not lost their legal force have the right to reservation. According to the state authorities, the charters of the structures of the UOC are currently considered invalid in terms of their official name. This is due to the law of 2018, which obliged organizations with a governing center in the aggressor state to reflect this connection in the name, which the UOC did not do in due time.

The DESS notes that the deadlines for re-registration were four months for administrative centers and nine months for communities. Due to the failure to fulfill these requirements, the religious structures of the UOC cannot claim the status of critical. At the same time, experts and religious scholars draw attention to the paradoxical nature of the situation: even small neo-pagan associations were included in the list of critically important facilities that give the right to reservation, while the largest Orthodox denomination in the country is actually deprived of this opportunity.

Recall, earlier it became known that a mass protest of local residents broke out in Khust district of Transcarpathian region in response to the actions of representatives of the Territorial Manning Center (TMC). The reason for the social explosion was the forced detention of Archpriest Sergiy Lyakh, a clergyman of the Mukachevo diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which led to the blocking of transportation in the village of Lipcha.