RPTs HEAD
COMPLAINS TO U.N., OSCE, HEADS OF WORLD CHURCHES ABOUT "START OF
WIDESPREAD PERSECUTION BY UKRAINIAN AUTHORITIES
Religiia
v
Ukraine, 14 December 2018
Patriarch of
Moscow Kirill sent letters on 14 December to primates of local
Orthodox
churches, Roman Pope Francis, the e head of the Anglican
Communion Archbishop
of Canterbury Justin Welby, the general secretary of the World
Council of
Churches Olav Fykse Tveit, and also United Nations General
Secretary A.
Guterres, the general secretary of the Organizations for
Security and
Cooperation in Europe Thomas Gereminger, French President E.
Makron, and German
Chancellor A. Merkel on the eve of the unification council of
the Orthodox
Church in Ukraine, Religiia v Ukraine reports with reference to
the website of
the OVTsSMP and Credo.Press.
The head of the
Russian Orthodox Church (RPTs) called the leaders' attention to
"massive
incidents of violations of the rights and liberties of
hierarchs, clergy, and
believers" of the UPTsMP [Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the
Moscow
Patriarchate]. "Recently the interference of leaders of the
secular
Ukrainian state in church affairs has acquired the character of
crude pressure
on the episcopate and clerics of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,
which permist
one to speak of the start of widespread persecutions," Vladyka
Kirill maintains.
He identified
the occasion for the "persecutions" as the unification council
in
Kiev, which was initiated by the patriarchate of Constantinople.
As the head of
the RPTs writes, "in order to force the episcopate of the
Ukrainian
Orthodox Church to participate in this event, agencies of the
government and
law enforcement of Ukraine have undertaken a number of actions
that in blatant
form violate the constitutional rights and liberties of citizens
of
Ukraine."
Among such
actions he pointed to conversations and interrogations in the
Security Service
of Ukraine (S.B.U.), detentions "including while crossing state
borders of
Ukraine," and "humiliating searches." Kirill also suggests that
Ukrainian authorities intend "to drive" the UPTsMP out of the
Kiev caves
lavra and the Pochaev lavra.
"In state
news media," the head of the RPTs maintains, "a mass campaign of
discrediting of the Ukrainian church is continuing. In fiolation
of the right
to privacy and the prohibition of the use of personal data,
information of a
personal nature concerning bishops and clergy of the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church
possessed by the state is being published. In particular,
personal data of a
substantial portion of the episcopate of the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church were
published on the website Peacemaker along with commentaries that
incite
religious enmity." According to Patriarch Kirill's information,
the
Peacemeker website subsists on the direct support of the
Ukrainian Ministry of
Internal Affairs.
"We do not
know what the next steps of the Ukrainian authorities will be
and what other
violations of fundamental and inalienable rights of man and
citizen they may
commit for achieving the established goals in the time remaining
until the
presidential elections," Kirill writes. "But numerous incidents
of
discrimination against the Ukrainian church that have already
occurred give
reason to fear yet more infringement of rights and legal
interests of Orthodox
believers and the multiplication of their sufferings for loyalty
to canonical
Orthodoxy."
The head of the
RPTs asks world leaders "to make every effort in order to
protect the
episcopate, clergy, and believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church from
discrimination and pressure on the part of Ukrainian authorities
and to defend
the freedom of conscience and religious confession enshrined in
international
law."
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