UOC spokesman: Authorities may take away temples, not faithful, from Church
The authorities get it wrong when thinking that, together with the temples, they will take away believers from the Church, Protopriest Nikolai Danilevich believes.
Commenting on the situation around the Pochaev Lavra, Protopriest Nikolai Danilevich, Deputy Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC, said that officials are trying to make the monastery defenceless in front of them, reports the "1Kozak" channel.
“The situation that has developed around the Pochaev Lavra tells us that no matter what legal documents our temples and monasteries possess, in our country all documents, the most super-legal ones, can be cancelled. And therefore, the documents will not save, people will save,” the UOC spokesman emphasized.
According to him, “a church where people go will be at least difficult to take away ... The Pochaev Lavra is a holy place where entire Ukraine comes, and not only Ukraine but Moldova, Belarus, Orthodox people from Russia ... They think that they will take away temples from us, and together with temples, they will take away people. They are wrong.”
As the UOJ reported, President Poroshenko earlier said that the state guarantees the right to freedom of religion, but the Moscow Patriarchate will no longer “grandstand” here.
