Expert: Сhurch needs to create a legal group to protect its rights

The head of the NGO "Public Audit", lawyer Maxim Goldarb

To protect the rights and freedoms of UOC believers, it is imperative to urgently create an active legal group that will quickly and harshly respond to attacks on both the Church and each particular temple or religious community, said the head of the NGO "Public Audit", a lawyer, a prosecutor with 14 -year experience Maxim Goldarb on the "1Kozak" TV channel.

As soon as the Ministry of Culture ordered an inventory of church property in the temples of the UOC, we prepared a lawsuit against this illegal order, the lawyer said.

"We posted it online. We gave it to some hierarchs. We asked several priests. We do not care who, but the lawsuit had to be signed by some clergy. Not a parishioner. Suppose the rector of a temple because he must be the right person, " said the head of the "Public Audit". "After he had signed this lawsuit, under an agreement on the provision of legal services, I would go to court myself and in court and challenge this improper decision of Nishchuk.”

During the time that has passed until it came to hostile takeovers, the force census, the seizure of temples, no one has done this, Goldarb noted.

According to him, all the unlawful actions of persecutors of the Church can be nipped in the bud.

“An official who does not know the law publishes a paper, we break it in court. If we did so, everything would be fine. No one would have the right to approach the temple, because the action and the decision were deemed illegal,” the expert explained.

According to Goldarb, the rector of the Tithes (Desiatinny) Monastery, Bishop Gedeon (Kharon) of Makarov who was illegally deprived of his citizenship and deported from Ukraine, asked the lawyer to talk with the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church His Beatitude Onufry about the urgent need to create a good legal service.

“The Church should have an excellent legal service. <...> It was necessary to do it back then, and I hope that now the church hierarchs, primates will do something like that. This is very important!” The lawyer concluded.

He is also confident that the struggle against the canonical Church is beneficial to both geopolitical forces and Ukrainian politicians. According to Goldarb, this is the reason for the persecution of the UOC. According to the lawyer, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko actively exploits the topic of the Tomos and the OCU. “He needs to say at least something, that he did at least something. And so he came up with the idea that he made his Church. He has two gimmicks – visa-free regime and this one,” said the expert.

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