Press service of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church: The DESS examination refers not to Ukrainian documents, but to Russian documents from the Russian Orthodox Church website

The press service of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church published information on the results of the “expertise” of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, according to which the affiliation of the UOC with the Moscow Patriarchate was established. The Church notes that the DESS came to conclusions about the connection between the UOC and the ROC, referring not to Ukrainian, but to Russian documents, which the State Service took from the website of the Moscow Patriarchate, which is banned in Ukraine. In addition, the DESS “experts” never asked the UOC for explanations regarding certain provisions, which indicates the bias of the examination and its conclusions. The message was published on the UOC website.

«The actions of state bodies, including the DESS, regarding the possibility of millions of believers of the UOC to profess their religious beliefs in accordance with the Ukrainian Constitution are being carefully studied by the lawyers of the UOC and considered in the context of domestic and international legislation. Unfortunately, when preparing their conclusions on purely canonical, sacred concepts, DESS officials never once sought clarification from representatives of the UOC. This unfortunate fact, as well as many other circumstances, indicate the presence of serious violations in the process of carrying out what DESS officials called an expert examination. Even more scandalous is the fact that the main conclusions of this expertise were based not on Ukrainian documents, according to which Ukrainian religious organizations carry out their activities, but on documents of Russian church organizations banned in Ukraine, borrowed from websites that are also banned in Ukraine,» — the press service of the UOC emphasizes in its statement.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church notes that the Church has repeatedly pointed out the absence of ties with organizations banned in Ukraine. At the same time, the DESS is pushing the UOC to establish such ties.

«The legal assessment of this methodology of examination and the activities of DESS experts should be given by law enforcement agencies. After all, this created a precedent whereby Ukrainian officials recognized as legitimate for Ukraine the documents of a state that committed aggression against the Ukrainian state. Our Church has repeatedly stated that at present it has no administrative or legal subordination, nor any contacts with religious organizations in the state that is committing aggression against Ukraine. In this regard, the DESS’s demands to resume official contacts between the UOC and such organizations banned in Ukraine, in the context of the Russian army’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine, contradict Ukrainian legislation and openly force us to engage in illegal activities,» — the press service added.

We recently published an analytical article stating that the recent expert examination and, as a result, the order of the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience demanding that the UOC remove signs of its affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church are impossible to implement for a number of objective reasons. Since all these “signs” are based on the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church on the UOC, they can be reduced to a single denominator: the UOC is required to amend the statute of the ROC. However, this must be done in such a way that, God forbid, it does not “taint” itself with ties to the ROC.