A criminal case was opened against the acting Minister of Culture for inciting religious hatred against the UOC

On August 9, 2024, the investigating judge of the Shevchenkovsky district court of Kiev satisfied the complaint of representatives of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and issued a ruling, which recognized the inaction of the authorized person of the Territorial Department of the GBR in Kiev and obliged the investigator to enter data on the commission of a criminal offense by the Acting Minister of culture and information policy of Ukraine Rostislav Karandeev in the Unified register of pre-trial investigations. This was reported by the lawyer of the UOC Archpriest Nikita Chekman.

It is reported that we are talking about the statements of Rostislav Karandeev, which were published in the article of the edition “Glavkom”: “I am, of course, for dialog, but you have to be persistent. Well, we give them a month of time. I’m talking about the Lower Lavra. After that, the issue will be resolved by force. This does not mean that we should say: tomorrow you should not be here. After all, most of the monks are actually focused on the faith, not on the “Russian world”, unlike the church leaders who were the carriers of the ROC’s narratives.”

According to Nikita Chekman, in this way Rostislav Karandeev in the form of slander and harassment humiliates the honor and dignity of citizens in connection with their religious beliefs, calling for a forceful solution to a controversial religious issue, calls for the incitement of religious enmity and hatred, which indicates state interference in the activities of religious organizations.

We will remind, earlier the lawyer and archpriest of the UOC Nikita Chekman reported that on 22.07.2024 sent to the Office of the Prosecutor General a report on the commission of a criminal offense by the people’s Deputy and former President of Ukraine Poroshenko Petro. The UOC states that Poroshenko repeatedly and publicly incited religious enmity and hatred against the clergy and laity of the Church.