Met. Clement: Law 8371 to bring more problems to authorities than to Church

Metropolitan Clement (Vecheria). Photo: Nizhyn Diocese

Metropolitan Clement of Nizhyn and Pryluky, Chairman of the UOC Information and Education Department, believes that the adoption of Draft Law No. 8371 "will obviously bring significantly more problems to the Ukrainian state and its leadership than to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church." He said this in a comment to Strana.

"The Church, by its very nature, cannot be destroyed. There are many examples of this. Khrushchev once tried to do this and promised to soon show the last priest. The result is known to everyone. At one time, Greek Catholics were banned, and Protestants were banned. Current practice shows that banning the Church is a mistaken path for the country, especially under the conditions of war, adopting repressive laws aimed against the Ukrainian population, which has its traditional religious beliefs. I am not a politician, but such steps seem, to put it mildly, not too progressive," noted Metropolitan Clement.

In his opinion, the persistent attempts to pass the law, which the opposition is actively pushing, appear not just as routine political maneuvering, but as an obvious threat to state stability and security.

"And such anti-state activities by the political authors of the bill already have a consistent logical sequence, which, for some reason, has not yet received an adequate response from law enforcement agencies. After all, it should not be forgotten that the main 'promoter' of the law against the UOC, Poroshenko, has several suspicions against him, including state treason for openly cooperating with the head of the aggressor country. No one has yet heard that these suspicions have been lifted," he stated.

Earlier, the UOJ editorial team published the full text of a letter from Robert Amsterdam to Volodymyr Zelensky regarding the Ukrainian government's plans to destroy the UOC.

Read also