Head of the UOC Legal Department: I am ready to go through a lie detector as long as Mister Yurash goes with me

Chairman of the Synodal Legal Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church protopriest Alexandr Bakhov responded to the proposal of director of the Department for Religions and Nationalities Andrey Yurash to go through a lie detector. He wrote about it on his page in Facebook.

“I’m ready to go through a lie detector as long as Mister Yurash goes with me”, stated the head of the UOC Legal Department. He underscored that statutes of the UOC religious organizations are standard and have been used for registration for many years (with account of legislation changes).   

“Registration of statutes is made in compliance with the Law of Ukraine “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations” wherein article 12 of the Law hereof sets out requirements for the statute of a religious organization, but nothing is said there about “strategic recommendations” (by the way, it’s the first time I’ve heard about Mr. Yurash’s recommendations). State authorities and their functionaries have to act only by virtue, within the powers, and in a manner prescribed by the law (art. 19 of the Constitution of Ukraine)”, the priest added. 

He was bewildered by the fact why Mr. Yurash laid an emphasis in his comment on the rights of religious communities whereas the point is about registration of the statutes of monasteries and synodal missions. It’s incomprehensible how exactly registration of the statutes of monasteries and synodal missions imposes restrictions on the rights of religious communities, the clergyman noted.

Why in January 2015 there was registered a statute of the mission of the Synodal Information Department, while the statute of the mission of the Synodal Social-Humanitarian Department, which was submitted in May 2015, hasn’t been registered so far? The question arises in my mind: did they really need more than a year to find out that the statutes contradict to the law? What is the point of procrastinating with the registration procedure and not informing about its examination outcome? Just take a look at the statistics: in 2015, unlike other religious organizations, out of 13 UOC statutes only one was registered (presumably, it was accidental), said Alexandr Bakhov. He announced that the Metropolitan’s office received no documents which, according to Yurash, were supposed to be sent by the Ministry of Culture for their finalization. “For my part I suggest that we’d rather “go through” the Penance Sacrament during the Lent period!”, said the head of the UOC Legal Department.

It is to be reminded that it took over a year for the Ministry of Culture to consider the registration issue of statutes of the UOC monasteries and synodal missions. After the information of 25.03.2016 on procrastination with the registration was made public, the Ministry of Culture declared that the statutes were not consistent with the law and they were purportedly sent back to be finalized. Yet one could not find out which of the laws the statutes run counter to.  

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