A petition was posted on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine with a request not to ban the UOC

A petition that calls not to ban the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of the Moscow Patriarchate, appeared on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

The document says that the believers of the UOC confirm that for them “there is no other earthly homeland except Ukraine”, but asked when making a decision to ban the activities of the church on the territory of the country “to take into account the position of us – citizens of Ukraine who are patriotic.” The petition emphasizes that believers support investigations in cases of collaboration.

“However, we consider it impossible to attribute the crimes of individual citizens to the entire ramified institution, which is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and on this basis resort to its legal prohibition,” the document says.

According to the authors of the petition, such an attitude towards the UOC “only leads to significant demoralization of part of society.”

“We ask the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, when developing a legislative framework, to approach the solution of the church issue in the same balanced way as it is done when considering problems in other areas of the life of the state, and not to lay the blame of individual representatives of the UOC on the entire institution, which is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” the statement says. petitions.

At the time of publication, the request not to ban the UOC was the most popular among petitions for which signatures are being collected. It was signed by 1,850 people, which is 7.4% of the number required for its consideration.

In November 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) spent searches in the churches of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In particular, it was reported about the verification of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the Archangel-Mikhailovsky Zverinets Monastery in Kyiv, two monasteries in the Rivne region, the Sarny diocese and the Chernivtsi-Bukovina diocese. Earlier today, the SBU came with searches to nine facilities of the UOC in the Zhytomyr, Rivne and Transcarpathian regions, the press service of the Ukrainian department reported.

In addition, on November 23, 2022, deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine made a bill to ban the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) on the territory of Ukraine. The authors of the initiative noted that this measure will be “another step towards a free and independent Ukraine.”

On December 1, 2022, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky approved the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine on restrictive measures against representatives of religious organizations that are allegedly associated with Russia. Earlier that day, the SBU carried out new searches at UOC facilities in Zhytomyr, Rivne and Zakarpattia regions. As a result, the Metropolitan of the Kirovograd diocese of the UOC was charged with “subversive activities against the state and inciting religious hatred.”