RPTs TO SEND
LETTER TO TILLERSON IN CONNECTION WITH PERSECUTION OF
PATRIARCHATE IN UKRAINE
RIA
Novosti, 26
September 2017
The Moscow
patriarchate is preparing an official letter to American
Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson in connected with the "partisan" report of the
American
Department of State regarding alleged infringement of religious
liberties in
Russia and Washington's completely ignoring the persecution of
the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church of the Moscow patriarchate in Ukraine, declared
Dmitry Safonov,
the head of the Section for Inter-religious Contacts of the
Department of
External Church Relations (OVTsS) of the MP.
The annual
report of the U.S.A. State Department on religious liberties of
the world was
published in August.
"We have
carefully analyzed it, and on the whole there exists a
consolidated position of
the Russian Orthodox Church with regard to this report. We are
now preparing a
letter to the American Secretary of State, Mr. Tillerson, where
in the name of
our chairman of the OVTsS (Metropolitan Ilarion—ed. note) we
express this
position," Safonov said at a press conference in the Moscow News
Agency
Russia Today.
He acknowledged
that the aforesaid report "perhaps is not as aggressive with
regard to the
Russian Orthodox Church as in the previous year;" however "there
are,
of course, points that evoke not only questions but also a
desire to refute
this information, especially as regards the situation of the
canonical
Ukrainian Orthodox Church on Ukrainian territory."
The
representative of the OVTsS noted that in the report of the
American State Department
"this information is presented in a completely one-sided way."
"There is
no mention of the numerous incidents of arson of church
buildings, the beating
of priests, and the draft laws, which are being prepared for
adoption in
Ukraine and which are completely discriminatory with respect to
all religious
associations that do not have [administrative] centers in
Ukraine. They also
are ignored in the report. The American report is rather
subjective and
obviously biased in favor of the noncanonical structure that has
the name
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev patriarchate," Safonov
noted.
At the present time, there operates in Ukraine the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UPTsMP), which is a self-administering church within the Moscow patriarchate, and there also are church structures that are not recognized by world Orthodoxy—the Kiev patriarchate (UPTsKP) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAPTs). At the same time, the UPTsMP frequently has reported incidents of harassment of clergymen and seizures of Orthodox church buildings by representatives of the UPTsKP. (tr. by PDS, posted 27 September 2017)
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