Vinnitsa RSA refuses to comply with the law on renaming the Church
Vinnitsa authorities refused to re-register the parish of the UOC by sending the rector to Moscow for a seal that would confirm affiliation with the Moscow Patriarchate.
Vinnitsa authorities refused to comply with the law on renaming religious organizations, reports "Strana" on December 29.
According to the edition, Protopriest Alexy, the rector of the Vinnitsa temple of Martyr Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kiev, decided to comply with Law No. 5309 and re-register the community of the church, adding "Moscow Patriarchate" to the name.
“Judging by the joyful television reports of some channels, the people’s optimism that the Moscow Patriarchate should be called the Moscow Patriarchate is fantastic,” Father Alexy explained to journalists. “And I thought to myself: ‘why not?’. I'm not against. The statute of my parish allows it. At the same time, I decided to demonstrate humility and love for the state and introduce the Moscow Patriarchate into the name.”
However, the head of the Department for Religious Affairs of the Vinnitsa Regional State Administration, I. A. Saletsky categorically said to the priest: "Go to Moscow and set a seal there that you are theirs."
“I told the official that the law implies a completely different thing – re-registration in Ukraine,” the cleric said. “But again, I received the answer: “Go to Moscow, set a seal there”. That is, it turns out we have to prove to the state with the help of documents from Moscow that we are not the Ukrainian Church so that it will forcefully rename us.”
The priests of the Vinnitsa eparchy believe that the local authorities will try to postpone the re-registration of the communities so that after the legally established deadlines expire, under the pretext of non-compliance by the communities, they could abolish these communities and transfer the temples to the newly formed OCU.
On December 22, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed anti-church bill No. 5309 “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations” concerning the name of religious organizations that are part of a religious organization whose governing centre is located outside Ukraine... " Director of the Department for Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Culture Andrei Yurash stated that if a religious organization that needs to change its name does not comply with Law No. 5309, it will be removed from the registry.
