RF MID: Ukrainian power tacitly encourages radicals’ persecution of UOC

Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Photo: delo.ua

On July 16, 2020, the Russian Foreign Ministry, in its report on the human rights situation in Ukraine, declared discrimination against believers and clergy of the UOC, the official website of the Foreign Ministry says.

The report notes that right-wing radicals, with the tacit encouragement of the Ukrainian authorities, commit the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The report lists numerous cases of violent seizures of temples, acts of arson, damage to church property, physical violence and intimidation of clergy and flocks that occurred in the period from 2016 to 2019.

In addition, the report mentions legislative acts adopted in 2018, one of which involves the forcible change of the name of the canonical Church, while the other creates prerequisites for the legalization of raider seizures of temples from their communities.

The document also refers to the actions of the Ukrainian authorities to force the UOC believers to change to the OCU.

The cases of pressure on the bishops and priests by the SBU, obstacles created by crossing the Ukrainian state border, detention under various pretexts and humiliating searches are also mentioned the document.

“During the presidential election campaign and up to summing up its results at the end of April 2019, the state-run media continued a mass campaign to discredit the UOC in Ukraine: groundless political accusations against church communities were replicated, including for secretly supporting the ‘separatists’, alleged organization of weapons depots on the church premises, refusals to provide funeral services for Ukrainian soldiers killed in the ATO,” the report says.

The document said that "leaflets of extremist contents were circulated in various regions of Ukraine calling for ‘the destruction of the UOC’. On Internet resources, including the notorious site Mirotvorets (“Peacemaker”), personal data of bishops and clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were published.”

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also mentioned the facts when “the seizures and illegal re-registration of the communities of the UOC were actively organized, with the participation of right-wing radicals, especially in the Ternopil, Rivne, Volyn, Vinnytsia, Chernivtsi regions”.

In 2020, the document says, "national radicals, adherents of the OCU and their henchmen in the power structures of Ukraine used the spread of a new coronavirus infection to accuse clerics of the UOC of ostensibly ‘mass violations of quarantine rules’. The canonical Church was virtually called ‘a source of infection’."

The Foreign Ministry noted that “in the Ukrainian media publications began to circulate on how, given the above, to take away the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra from the UOC. A similar petition was posted on the website of the Office of the President of Ukraine. A targeted media campaign was held on the spread of the coronavirus in the Kyiv-Pechersk and Pochayiv Lavra."

“The authorities of the Ternopil Region accused the Pochayiv Lavra of an outbreak of coronavirus. The chief sanitary doctor of the region Oksana Chaychuk publicly described the scheme of how exactly the Lavra allegedly was involved in the growth of the incidence. In addition, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine opened two criminal cases on the fact of a mass violation of quarantine in the Sviatogorsk and Pochayiv Lavras,” the report said.

The document notes that international human rights structures and monitoring mechanisms characterize the situation in Ukraine with the transfer of temples and religious communities from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the OCU in the most negative way, by which Ukrainian right-wing radicals often play an active role.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that, in the opinion of MP Viktor Medvedchuk, the team of the incumbent President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky continues Poroshenko’s policy of persecuting the only canonical Church in Ukraine.

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