Opposition MPs send Patriarch Bartholomew alternative message

People's deputies, members of the parliamentary opposition, have sent the Patriarch of Constantinople an alternative message, disapproving of the interference of politicians in the affairs of the Church and calling for the strengthening of the canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine, reports the site of the Opposition block.

MPs on behalf of millions of Ukrainian Orthodox appeal to the Patriarch of Constantinople "with the request for prayer and blessing for our people, the State and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to continue being a consolidating factor for the millions of Ukrainians who hopefully expect from the Church hierarchy that the veracity of the canonical way of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will not be called into question because of the political interference in the life of the church," says the statement.

"We are very concerned about the initiatives of political adventurers who are forcefully trying to change the existing canonical structure of Ukraine, putting pressure on the Orthodox bishops and priests, ordering the media slander campaigns against the Church, developing new laws, which do not meet European standards on religious rights and freedoms. There is every reason to believe that such actions are deliberately designed to weaken the canonical Church, as well as the Ukrainian society, creating new sources of conflict on religious grounds, which weakens the Ukrainian state," stressed the deputies.

The opposition MPs also state: "For us, as people's deputies of the Ukrainian Parliament, are extremely valuable your personal efforts to overcome the division of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, and establishment of the canonical way on the territory of Ukraine is the key to the religious peace, and therefore – the stability in the society and the Ukrainian state".

Recall that on July 16 deputies of the Verkhovna Rada adopted an appeal to the Patriarch of Constantinople with a request for the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church.