Mykola Knyazhitsky: OCU Tomos should be implemented in Ukrainian legislation

On February 14, 2023, People’s Deputy Mykola Knyazhitsky, in his blog on Espresso, stated the need to “fix the provisions of Tomos in Ukrainian legislation and, on their basis, streamline the situation in Ukrainian Orthodoxy.”

Knyazhitsky admits that the receipt of Tomos was “the result of the efforts of the Ukrainian state, and not only the result of church processes. And this fact is reflected in the text of the document.

He also believes that the adoption of bill 8221 «will put an end not only to the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in our state, but also to the pan-Orthodox solution of the Ukrainian church issue as another threat to national security.»

The deputy from the Poroshenko party also stated that the implementation of the Tomos in the national legislation would not give the OCU the status of a “state church”. “This is not true and legal nonsense, because there is no trace of such a proposal in the bill,” he said.

According to Knyazhitsky, “instead, there is a proposal that the decision to recognize a certain religious organization as Orthodox is made by the governing bodies of the OCU, and not by a state authority (“The Church should determine who can be called Orthodox,” January 4, 2023). But the very process of registering religious organizations will remain within the competence of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience. In the end, the powers of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience will be tightened.”

The people’s deputy noted that “the previous and current presidents called the receipt of autocephaly by the OCU an act of “spiritual independence”. And every act of this rank needs to be implemented in the legislation so as not to become another historical monument, as the enemies of Ukraine and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine want it to be.”

«And therefore» Carthage must be destroyed. In order to protect Ukrainian independence and democracy, the draft law “On Ensuring the Strengthening of National Security in the Sphere of Freedom of Conscience and the Activities of Religious Organizations” (No. 8221) should be adopted as soon as possible. The best proposals of the government project can also be taken into account,” said Knyazhitsky.