MP: Defining "right" and "wrong" churches is not a matter for authorities

MP Oleksandr Dubinsky. Photo: 5.ua

Religious wars are the most terrible, bloodiest and merciless. That is why the authorities must abide by the Constitution, which states that the Church in Ukraine shall be separated from the state, said people's deputy Oleksandr Dubinsky on his YouTube channel.

The MP said that the interference of the state in the affairs of the Church is incomprehensible to him. Dubinsky advised the Ministry of Culture to concentrate on their direct work and not to divide confessions into "right" and "wrong".

"Citizens, parishioners, they go to church to a particular priest, to a holy father, to a spiritual leader, who manages the church and the parish, is in contact with his flock and unites people around himself, around some values, Orthodox in this case, and connects them to God. This is how people think, how they want to think. <...> They think that this current in Orthodoxy is canonical. And it is pointless to argue with this," he said.

According to him, the eviction of monks from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is nothing more than a struggle by Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko for a bread-and-butter position:

"There is a parish that is beyond the control of Culture Minister Tkachenko, and there may be a parish that becomes under the control of Culture Minister Tkachenko. Will this change the attitude of citizens to a particular church or a particular priest? Undoubtedly, no," he said.

At the same time, the politician compared Minister of Culture Tkachenko to Soviet Commissar Nikolai Yezhov who in the 1930s of the 20th century was engaged in repressions against the Church:

"In the USSR, there was such a People's Commissar Yezhov, who was engaged in repressions against clergymen: the annihilation of clergymen, parishioners, explosions of cathedrals," Dubinsky said. “Minister Tkachenko, who today is evicting some members of Orthodoxy and settling other members of Orthodoxy in churches, is our little Ukrainian Yezhov, as I see it.”

As reported, Metropolitan Varsonofy urged to raise world public opinion to defend the Lavra.

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