MPs overwhelmingly back move in initial vote, despite church claim it has cut ties with Moscow
ReutersThe Ukrainian parliament gave initial approval on Thursday to a law that would ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church after KyivThe UOC, which says it no longer aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church, denies the charges levelled at it by Kyiv and said the draft law would be unconstitutional.
The law would ban the activities of religious organisations affiliated with centres of influence “in a state that carries out armed aggression against Ukraine“, and such activities could be terminated by a court of law.Another lawmaker, Iryna Herashchenko, said the vote was historic, and described it a first step towards removing “Moscow priests from the Ukrainian land“.
Describing itself as an “independent and separate church“, the UOC accused Kyiv of trying to pass it off as affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church and portraying its Ukrainian clergymen and believers as “agents of the Russian Federation“., and cracked down on the church after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The church’s second most senior priest, Metropolitan Pavlo, has been notified he is suspected of inciting inter-religious hatred and distributing materials justifying Russian aggression. He has denied the accusations.
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