2024-08-18 22:16:36
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky met with representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (OSCiRO) and thanked them for their support of the legislative initiative to ban the activities of the Russian-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UPC-MP) in Ukraine. reported Ukrinform. Zelensky announced the meeting in the Telegram application.
Next week, the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada will consider a bill to ban the activities of religious organizations in Ukraine, especially those connected to Russia, BTA reports.
“I had a meeting with representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations. I am grateful for the support of the legislative initiative aimed at strengthening Ukrainian spiritual independence,” the Ukrainian president wrote in Telegram.
He noted that the meeting discussed the defense of the independence of Ukraine and its citizens, as well as the situation in the settlements in Ukraine, which suffer daily from Russian attacks.
“Faced with this merciless Russian war against Ukraine, standing by Ukraine and staying in Ukraine is a test of the ability to protect everything good and human in human nature,” Zelensky also stated in Telegram. In 2019, the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) received from the Ecumenical Patriarchate the status of an autocephalous church.
At the same time, the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that the authorities in Kyiv will not be able to “destroy canonical Orthodoxy”, TASS reported.
“We are convinced that the Kyiv junta will not be able to destroy canonical Orthodoxy, which is professed by a large part of the country’s population. We call on the strong forces of the international community and specialized institutions to condemn the sacrilegious war of the Zelensky regime with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.” said Zakharova, quoted by TASS.