State will not grant UOC priests deferral from mobilization to the Armed Forces

The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience has published a list of criteria according to which religious leaders may be granted a deferral from mobilization. According to the list, clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will not be able to be protected from mobilization, as the UOC falls under the anti-church law No. 3894. This is reported by Liga Zakon.

It is reported that one of the criteria by which the decision on the postponement for the clergy will be made is that representatives of religious organizations that are “included in the list of religious organizations in Ukraine affiliated (related by one or more features defined in Article 51 of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations’) with a foreign religious organization whose activities are prohibited in Ukraine” are not allowed to be exempted from military service.

Accordingly, given that Law No. 3894 is aimed at banning the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, it is unlikely that the UOC clergy will be able to postpone mobilization until the procedure for establishing “affiliation with Russia” is initiated. The situation will not change after these procedures are carried out and, logically, most religious communities of the UOC will be deregistered.

As we reported earlier, the recent decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on the inclusion of religious organizations in the list of critical infrastructure and, as a result, the reservation of clergy from military service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, may become a trap for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This opinion was expressed by Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Dubinsky, who believes that the state, using the norms of such a Cabinet order, will blackmail the priests of the UOC, persuading them to join the OCU in exchange for exemption from military service.