Volyn region authorities to re-register UOC communities to OCU

Even those communities that have previously submitted documents that they do not want to go to the OCU must go through a mandatory re-registration.

On July 11, 2019, the religious communities of the canonical Church in the Volyn region were obliged to re-register to the OCU, the former head of the press service of the Volyn Eparchy, Archpriest Oleg Tochinsky, reported on Facebook.

He also published a photocopy of the relevant order, which was signed by the acting head of the Volyn RSA Alexander Kirichuk. In the text of the order, Kirichuk named 19 religious communities of the UOC the changes in the Statutes of which he ordered to register.

“What is interesting, the acting head ignored the fact that representatives of such communities as the Holy Transfiguration of the UOC in the village of Chetvertnia and the Holy Pokrovskaya of the UOC in the village of Khmelnitskoye filed with the RSA relevant appeals and decisions of the protocols that confirm that the so-called transfers to the OCU did not happen both de facto and de jure legally in these villages. The same concerns the others listed in the order,” said Archpriest Oleg.

He reminded that the Primate of the UOC was promised to stop the persecution of the Church.

“As I understand it, the “new” people are planning to continue using the methods of their predecessors, pursuing the same aggressive and lawless policy towards those citizens who do not want to be part of the “Tomosiad” launched by Poroshenko,” the priest wrote. “As it turned out, you can. You can repeat the mistakes of the past, dividing Ukrainians into the “right” believers and politically wrong believers. It’s a pity ... After all, it all started so well ... One well-known person recently sat in front of the Primate of the UOC and, looking into his eyes, promised that everything would be ‘according to the law’.”

Earlier, representatives of the new government declared the principle of non-interference in religious affairs, for example, on June 12, 2019, Dmitry Razumkov, the head of the Civil Servant party, stressed that the authorities should not interfere in the religious affairs. “If we are talking about the role of the state in this matter, the state should ensure the interests of all, regardless of which church you go to and whether you go at all,” Razumkov said.