MP confirms that the law on banning the UOC is needed to take away churches

Mykola Kniazhytskyi, a member of the Ukrainian parliament from the European Solidarity party, confirmed that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed the scandalous anti-church law No. 3894, aimed at banning the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was adopted, among other things, to take away churches from the UOC. Knyazhytsky believes that since not all Ukrainian settlements have churches of the OCU, people may not realize that their “priests have ties to Moscow.” Thus, the law banning the UOC is aimed at correcting this. He stated this on the air of the Espresso TV channel.

“Not everywhere there are churches of the Ukrainian Church, which is why transitions (to the OCU — ed.) are needed. Secondly, the so-called Russian Church itself is not a church, it is today a sect, a state Russian sect, which is part of, in fact, the ideological support of the power structures of the Russian Federation, the aggressor country. People very often do not realize this, which is why we passed the Law “On the Prohibition of the Activities of the Russian Church in Ukraine” in the parliament, which in no way restricts, as they often try to present it, the right of people to go to a particular church. We are banning ties with Russia, that’s all,” — said Kniazhytskyi.

The MP added that after the law comes into force, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will cease to exist, and the organization and support of the seizures of UOC churches will help speed up the process.

“There is the leadership — the leadership works for Moscow, and there are people who go to an ordinary church, if their priest does not mention Kirill once again and does not praise Russia, they may not even suspect that this church is a system of a large network. And it is for such people that we passed our law to explain this to them, and because of this, the number of these transitions has increased. It was very high in ’19, over 300, and then in ’20 there were 20 or 30. Now in 23, 24, this number of transitions is growing, and obviously there will be more of them, and when the law comes into force, there will simply be no Russian Church in Ukraine,” — the MP emphasized.

Earlier, Ukrainian MP and chairman of the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy Nikita Poturaev said that the implementation of Law No. 3894, aimed at banning the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, would begin in the near future. According to the deputy, the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience has already developed the necessary regulations, which are now being reviewed by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.