Over 52 thousand believers of Odessa request MPs not to vote for anti-church laws

On May 14 all temples of Odessa UOC eparchy began to collect signatures under letters of appeal written by the believers to Parliamentarians of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine from Odessa and Odessa region so that they did not vote but stand against discriminatory draft laws #4511 and #4128, writes the diocesan site.

As of 21 p.m. there were collected over 52000 signatures of the region’s citizens against the mentioned bills during one day.

A lot of faithful who could not put their signatures for certain reasons addressed Metropolitan Agafangel of Odessa and Izmail with a request to prolong this action.

Signature collecting has been prolonged till the evening of May 15, after which all the signatures will be transferred to Kiev to the MPs of Ukraine who were elected in Odessa region by majority constituencies in order for them to defend interests of their electorate and prevent the religious discrimination of millions of faithful Ukrainians in the supreme legislative body of Ukraine.