Russian Church makes a statement about discrimination of UOC faithful at OSCE meeting

The Russian Orthodox Church expresses its utmost concern at the discrimination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, said at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw Deacon Feodor Shulga, a member of the secretariat for inter-Orthodox relations of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, reports Vzgliad (View).

"These facts (violent seizure of churches) are undeniable; they are recognized by the majority of judicial investigations. Unfortunately, the local authority often does not have enough strength and political will to fulfill the decisions of the courts. But the worst thing is that this kind of offense is going to be legalized at the legislative level, artificially limiting the rights of one of the Ukrainian denominations," said Shulga, noting that this includes the Verkhovna Rada bill №4128 about the change of subordination of religious organizations.

"The last time this kind of pressure instruments was used in the territory of Ukraine only in the years of Stalin's regime," said Shulga.

The ROC representative noted that information campaign against the UOC is also under way, and religious and public leaders, "the official representatives of the authorities and security services allow themselves to use hate speech", which leads to increased aggression in society and cases of vandalism and violence that goes unaccountable.

"Numerous burnings of churches (only in Kiev, they run into tens), beating the faithful, and even a few priests’ murders have not yet received a proper investigation," he recalled.

The representative of the Russian delegation expressed a deep concern of the ROC at the facts of the UOC discrimination in Ukraine. "The Russian Orthodox Church is extremely concerned about the numerous facts of discrimination against their brethren in Ukraine. If some political forces in Ukraine see the largest denomination of the country an enemy of the people - it only speaks about the radicalism of these forces: the UOC maintains political neutrality and is making every effort to restore peace in the country," concluded Feodor Shulga.