Mobilization of priests: lies and manipulation

The DESS has published a list of religious organizations whose representatives may be exempt from mobilization into the Armed Forces of Ukraine. There are 7,736 such institutions out of 30,000 officially registered ones. We have already pointed out that no parish or monastery of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is included in this list, which demonstrates direct discrimination against the clergy of the UOC on religious grounds and directly violates the Constitution of Ukraine.

However, there are several other interesting points that have been overlooked. They are directly related to the fact that by publishing this list, the DESS revealed previously unknown details about the activities of certain religious communities in Ukraine and, once again, demonstrated its bias against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The lies of the OCU

As previously reported, the list of “reserved” organizations includes more than seven thousand religious organizations throughout Ukraine. This list includes such exotic religious organizations as, for example, the “Religious Community of the Native Ukrainian National Faith ”Svitlo Dazhbozhe» (in other words, neo-pagans) or the “Independent Religious Community — Christian Church (Full Gospel) Morning Star” (it is difficult to comment on this, given that in Latin, “Morning Star” is read as the interesting word “Lucifer”).

And so, these unknown religious organizations, which, as it turns out, quietly exist in Ukraine, together with Protestants of all stripes, make up almost 40% of this list. But among them are also the “titular churches” of Ukraine — the OCU and the UGCC. That is, they make up the remaining 60% of the list. Even if we hypothetically divide this 60% in half, we get the following picture: the OCU and the UGCC together have 4,600 parishes. Yes, these calculations are very rough, and we fully admit that there are actually more.

However, this does not correspond with the figures recently announced by the head of the OCU, Epiphanius Dumenko, who stated that his organization has about 9,000 parishes. What does this mean? It means that either not all OCU parishes are included in the list, or Dumenko lied when he said that the OCU currently has 9,000 parishes.

In addition, there is a serious legal conflict, in which a significant number of OCU parishes still belong de jure to the “Kyiv Patriarchate.” This is despite the fact that the UOC-KP itself has been liquidated, and Filaret has not been allowed to register a new structure in Ukraine. At the same time, there are parishes that bear the names of saints and icons “decanonized” in the OCU, for example, in honor of the righteous Prince Alexander Nevsky or the “Kazan Icon” of the Mother of God.

The lie of the DESS

When compiling the list, the State Service for Ethnic Policy did not even bother to provide grounds for why no parish of the UOC was exempt from mobilization. And, in principle, they simply do not have any logical or even acceptable legal explanations. In correspondence on Facebook, DESS officials offer different versions of why this is so. Some refer to anti-church law No. 3894, saying that the UOC is banned, so it does not apply to them.

At the same time, not a single parish of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has yet received any documents on the examination conducted in relation to it, which would prove its affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church. The State Service has only just begun the procedure of checking the Kyiv Metropolis, the results of which are still unknown to us.

Another representative of the DESS stated that the Statutes of the UOC had lost their legal force because the Church had not complied with the requirements of the law on renaming. However, this situation is legally impossible, since the Statute is the main document of a religious organization, like a passport for a citizen, and it cannot lose its legal force, except after a corresponding court decision, which would inevitably lead to a ban. In addition, the GESS contradicts itself, because if the Statutes of the UOC have lost their validity, then on what basis does the State Service intend to issue resolutions on affiliation with the ROC? It turns out that the DESS will base its expertise on the Statutes of the parishes of the UOC, which, in their opinion, are invalid?

How to get out of the situation

Although we have repeatedly written about the fact that it would come to this, it would not be a sin to recall our previous thoughts on this matter. In Ukraine, the UOC has virtually no rights or freedoms left. The Church is completely squeezed by the bureaucratic machine, and any attempts to defend itself in Ukrainian courts are doomed to failure. In Ukraine, this issue cannot be resolved in any way, and we must come to terms with this.

In this regard, it seems to us that the Church needs a new strategy, which will consist in making the UOC the new “Uighurs” on the world political arena. It no longer matters who exactly will speak about the persecution of the Church in Ukraine! Now it is important that this information be heard as loudly as possible on all platforms. The state is pursuing a completely discriminatory and misanthropic policy towards the UOC. And this needs to be talked about wherever possible. Even if it’s in line at McDonald’s somewhere in Berlin or over a cup of coffee at a Starbucks cafe in Paris.