Metropolitan Clement: Law 8371 violates the law on decommunization

Metropolitan Clement (Vecheria). Photo: BBC

The Chairman of the Information and Education Department of the UOC, Metropolitan Clement of Nizhyn and Pryluky, commenting to the Ukrainian studio of BBC on the adoption of Law No. 8371 by the Verkhovna Rada, noted that the Church has experience living under legislative bans, which the Soviet government actively imposed against it in the past.

The Metropolitan reminded that the Legal Department of the Verkhovna Rada itself stated that the new law contradicts the Ukrainian Constitution and a number of obligations that Ukraine must adhere to under international agreements, including on the path to integration into the European space.

"Probably, those who lobbied for this law are consciously interested in creating such a scandal. But few seem to notice that the newly adopted law primarily violates another law – the law on decommunization. One of Lenin's first decrees after coming to power was the decree on the Church, followed by the decree on the confiscation of its property and the deprivation of its registration," said Metropolitan Clement.

According to him, everything that recently happened around the adoption of Law 8371 triggered a strong recollection of all the things that not only returned us to the atheistic ideology of Soviet times but also to the methods by which this ideology was implemented.

"Soviet power tried to prohibit the Church through numerous laws. And when it realized that it was impossible to do so through laws, it began executing millions of believers of various denominations, including those loyal to it.

Of course, in the 21st century, this is no longer possible, but society must be very cautious about the emergence of any manifestations of segregation of Ukrainian citizens into 'right' and 'wrong' ones," emphasized the UOC hierarch.

As previously reported by the Union of Orthodox Journalists, Metropolitan Clement stressed that Verkhovna Rada lawyers assert that Law 8371 does not comply with the Constitution.

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