“The law on the church should be put immediately first,” - Poroshenko's deputy

Former President of Ukraine, MP Petro Poroshenko, said that bill No. 8371, aimed at banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, will be the first to be put to a vote in the Verkhovna Rada at the next session. Poroshenko added that the relevant agreements were reached with the parliamentary factions of the Ukrainian parliament. This was reported by the Interfax news agency.

“We firmly insisted that the law on the church should be put on the agenda first. In order not to put it on the agenda, the Parliament went on vacation for almost a month, but today an agreement was reached that the decision of the Conciliation Council two months ago to start considering the issue of the church has finally been implemented. Our goal is in no way to close the road to the church for any of the believers, our goal is to stop the activities of the fifth column of the Russian Federation, the scoundrels who surrender the positions of our troops, hand over patriots, volunteers, volunteers to Russia, refuse to perform funeral services for Ukrainian heroes and do other things that exactly coincide with the interests of the aggressor country,” — Poroshenko said.

The former president added that European Solidarity will also demand the implementation of the 2019 law on renaming the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

“If the church has a control center in the aggressor country, if it mentions FSB General Kirill Gundyaev in the diptych, then it should be called the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine in accordance with the law. There is no need to manipulate people and deceive people. A believer who goes to a church of the Russian Orthodox Church must clearly understand and consciously make a choice. And those who refuse to be renamed should be subject to appropriate measures provided for by law through the court, through the Ministry of Justice,” — Poroshenko added.