The lawyer of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) Robert Amsterdam criticized the bill recently adopted by the Verkhovna Rada, considering it a de facto ban on the activities of the UOC. According to Amsterdam, this law is a "religious purge" and "a new black page in the history of human rights violations in Ukraine."
Amsterdam said that "the majority of the Verkhovna Rada succumbed to nationalist pressure" and added that the bill's lobbyists would bear international responsibility. "This is a form of targeted discrimination that infringes on the rights of millions of Ukrainian citizens who belong to the country's ancient Christian denomination," he said.
The lawyer also provided details of the bill.
According to him, the relations between the UOC and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) will be established by the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience. If the service determines that these churches are connected, it will file a lawsuit in the administrative court demanding the termination of the UOC's activities.
Amsterdam emphasized that officials will be able to use the ROC statute, which specifies this connection, as a criterion for determining connections. At the same time, the Ukrainian Church cannot influence the change in the statute of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The lawyer recalled that after the full-scale invasion of Russia, the UOC removed the reference to the Russian Orthodox Church from its charter and declared its complete independence, in particular by resuming the production of peacekeepers in Kyiv and opening foreign offices.
According to Amsterdam, officials can ignore those facts under the bill.
If the court upholds the lawsuit, it would strip the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of its legal identity and property rights, as well as ban its religious activities, forcing congregants to pray underground. At the same time, as the lawyer notes, filing a lawsuit in court can take place only nine months after establishing the fact of "connections with the Russian Orthodox Church."
