MP: Budget funding for OCU would boost transfers from UOC
Poturaev believes state funding would help solve the OCU’s staffing problem.
Mykyta Poturaev, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, has proposed a new scheme for financing the OCU through income tax in order to encourage more communities to transfer from the UOC.
Poturaev said supporters of Epifaniy Dumenko lack sufficient funding. In his view, this prevents OCU priests from consistently ministering to communities that want to transfer. “The OCU lives exclusively on donations from patriotically minded people,” the lawmaker said. “But that is precisely why the OCU often faces a shortage of money and, consequently, of personnel.”
The MP said the solution would be to introduce, after the war, a European-style system allowing citizens to allocate part of their income tax to a religious organization. Under his proposal, each taxpayer would be able to direct a share of their income tax to the needs of a religious organization. If a citizen does not make such a choice, the money would go directly into the state budget.
“If a parish gets a young, energetic priest who has the means to support himself, that will directly stimulate the pace of transfers,” Poturaev stressed. He said the reform cannot be launched at present because of the ongoing hostilities, but that the authorities plan to introduce the new taxation scheme in the postwar period.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that Shostatsky complained of a staffing shortage in the OCU.
