DESS representative: Booking priests is more complicated than booking company employees

Ukraine has begun the process of exempting religious leaders from mobilization into the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, the process is much more complicated than, for example, exempting employees of ordinary enterprises and institutions. Viktor Voynalovich, first deputy head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, spoke about this in a comment to the publication Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.

“We held a series of relevant meetings because exemption is a very complex process in itself, especially given the specific nature of the religious organizations we are dealing with. These are not classic enterprises or organizations that have traditional human resources departments and constantly inform or report to the relevant authorities,” — Voynalovich said.

Therefore, in this case, according to him, the preparatory process for booking requires serious, thorough, and explanatory work among religious organizations and their religious management centers, which are directly involved in the entire vertical structure, reaching out to communities.

“Therefore, in this context, we held a series of such explanatory meetings, posted the relevant information on the website, prepared all the necessary packages and forms of documents that need to be submitted to confirm and verify the rights of a specific person, as well as a specific religious organization, added to this list,” — Voynalovich added.

As a reminder, the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience published an explanation of the norm previously introduced by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on deferral from mobilization for heads of religious organizations registered in Ukraine. As previously reported, the list of religious organizations whose heads and representatives are eligible for deferral from mobilization into the Armed Forces of Ukraine includes 7,726 legal entities, among which there are no parishes, monasteries, or other institutions of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.