KDAiS rector: It’s a shame to persecute the Church if we aim for EU values

The rector of the KDAiS, Archbishop Sylvester (Stoichev), said that the believers of the UOC do not want Ukraine to become an authoritarian state in which citizens are told which church to go to and how to pray. He spoke about this in an interview with dialogtut.org.

Commenting on the decisions of local authorities to ban the activities of the UOC communities and legislative initiatives aimed at the actual outawing the Church by the central authorities, he said that the UOC is blamed the preaching of the so-called “Russian world”.

“Forgive me, but there is no ‘Russian world’ doctrine in any official document adopted by the Council or the Synod of our Church! Perhaps some of the priests in the parish could speak out in support of this ideology. But, firstly, this is not the official position of the Church. And, secondly, I can say with full confidence that such statements are random. So here we are dealing, rather, with a myth than with reality,” said the KDAiS rector.

Speaking about collaborators in the UOC, Archbishop Sylvester called this phenomenon shameful. However, he emphasized that these are just random cases, but not a systemic phenomenon in the Church.

“I believe the Church should openly acknowledge such facts. In this case, responsibility must be individual. If the guilt of the priest is proven, he must answer according to the law. But this guilt cannot be made collective and apply to the whole Church. By the way, this is another basic principle of European justice,” he explained.

Archbishop Sylvester noted that the state’s prerogative is to address national security issues during the war.

“But I am also absolutely sure that a constitutional state has to ensure freedom of conscience, freedom of religion for all confessions existing on its territory instead of dealing with issues of unification of Churches, canonicity or non-canonicity of confessions. The canons of the Orthodox Church are not state laws in our country. They are interpreted as the internal legislation of the Church, which is none of the state’s business, by and large,” the archbishop said.

The rector of the KDAiS reiterated that he is against collective guilt and called it the purest authoritarianism.

“Can you imagine a government official in France or Germany saying that Muslims  are unreliable as a religious denomination because there have been terrorist attacks committed by Muslims? I honestly can’t imagine how this is possible,” he said.

The archbishop expressed confidence that even during the war Ukraine would remain a state of law, where a person's guilt is determined by the court, rather than public opinion. If there is an individual offense and / or crime, then the punishment is borne by the individual who committed it.

The hierarch of the UOC said that he believes in the victory of Ukraine, including in its difficult path to a developed, European state based on the rule of law.

“Even if the state starts de facto considering the OCU as the main state confession, I still believe in Ukraine as a European state with democratic values. And this, among other things, means that the state must ensure freedom of religion for all its citizens. Otherwise, the state ceases to be legal and democratic,” summed up Archbishop Sylvester.

As the UOJ reported, earlier Archbishop Sylvester (Stoichev) explained that the process of obtaining autocephalous status is complex and lengthy, and today the UOC enjoys the same independence as the autocephalous Churches.