Draft Law # 4128 – a level of pressure on the Church, – expert

Mikhail Pogrebinsky, Director of Kiev Center for Political Studies and Conflict Management, believes that draft law # 4128 demonstrates continued attacks of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The expert told about it to the UOJ, while he was giving his comments on the draft law being included in the VR’s agenda for October 6.

“The authorities are trying to replace the Church by the politically-biased organization (I cannot call Filaret adherents otherwise), which constantly campaigns for the war against peace, comments wickedly on everything having to do with Russia, and promotes further split in the society,” confidently says Mikhail Pogrebinsky. “I do not exclude it that MPs might vote for such a draft law. In any case, once the regulation has been adopted, it’ll inevitably entail repercussions and the society will turn it down sooner or later. Unfortunately, it may happen fairly late. Anyway, it’s going to happen for sure.”

According to experts, following the logic of draft law # 4128, initiated by V.Yelensky, a person can affiliate to a religious community only by means of “self-identification”. It means even an outsider can consider himself a member of the particular parish and vote for its transition to a different jurisdiction. In fact, this is legitimization of the church raiding.