The officials have no legal grounds to demand from the communities of the UOC to re-register the statutes with a new name.

The head of the Legal Department of the UOC, Archpriest Alexander Bakhov, noted that the adoption of the law «on renaming» was part of «a large raider scheme that is being implemented at the state level in order to take away the property of the UOC in favor of the newly formed OCU organization.» He said this during a round table on the topic «Three years of attempts to forcibly rename the Ukrainian Orthodox Church: consequences, assessments, comments.»

After analyzing this law, he noted that, in fact, the officials have no legal grounds to demand from the communities of the UOC to re-register the statutes with a new name.

«There is no reminder of the UOC in this law. The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine received the authority to determine who this law applies to, which was supposed to conduct a religious examination. But this examination and the list of organizations that should change their names are not included in the legal Therefore, it is wrong and illegal to say that this law applies to the UOC, «Father Alexander said.