Yelensky assures that UOC ban will not violate believers’ rights
The DESS head said that UOC parishioners would be able to continue "to practice their faith and express their religious feelings in a dignified manner".
The head of the State Ethnopolitics Service, Viktor Yelensky, assured on the air of Svoboda Live that the adoption of the bill banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church would not affect the rights of its believers.
According to him, the law "pursues the goal to stop the influence on Ukrainians of the Moscow Patriarchate".
"We are talking about stopping this influence, about dismantling the structures of the Moscow Patriarchate. But in no case is it about people who previously belonged to this Church being unable to practice their faith and express their religious feelings in a dignified way," said Viktor Yelensky. Yelensky did not explain how exactly the parishioners of the UOC will be able to practice their faith if the authorities intend to close their churches (or forcibly transfer them to the OCU).
