MP: After the UOC is banned, its faithful can even open casinos in churches
MP Mykyta Poturaev stated that if the UOC is banned, only churches in private ownership will remain with its communities – but worship in them will be prohibited.
Speaking on Lviv Media, Ukrainian MP Mykyta Poturaev described what will happen to the property of UOC communities if the Church is officially banned.
According to him, if churches or other property are owned by the state, UOC communities will be expelled. He cited the Kyiv-Pechersk and Pochaiv Lavras as examples. If a church is in communal ownership, “it will revert to local government.”
In the case of private ownership, Poturaev said, “they can keep it – private property is inviolable in our country.”
However, he emphasized that holding worship services there will be banned.
“But otherwise – let them store vegetables there, trade, I don’t know, open a casino – that’s their business, it’s their private property. They just won’t be able to use it to glorify their Gundiay (referring derogatively to Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev) of the ROC – Ed.),” the MP said mockingly and added: “We’re not fascists, no matter what the ‘Moskals’ say – we are a rule-of-law state.”
According to him, members of the banned community will only be allowed to gather “somewhere in a house.” But even then, the state will keep watch over them.
If there is any “propaganda of the Russian world” during such gatherings, Poturaiev warned, the SBU will intervene. He claimed that people jokingly call the agency the “Service of God of Ukraine.”
“The service will come to them if they meet in secret – God’s service. And that will be the end of it too, only worse,” the MP threatened.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that according to Poturaiev, the government is studying the UOC’s legal status using Russian documents.
