A draft law that would ban the Kremlin-backed branch of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine moved forward on Thursday.
Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed the first reading of a bill banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP), Yaroslav Zheleznyak, the People's Deputy of Ukraine reported via Telegram.
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The draft law had support from 267 deputies. The largest number of those who voted for the initiative were from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People – with 175 of them in support.
For the draft law to come into force, it must be voted for in its second reading and signed by Zelensky.
The UOC-MP has an ecclesiastical-canonical relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and, as such, is deemed to be a fifth column for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
On June 7, Oleksandr Tkachenko, Ukraine’s culture and information minister, said that, were the law passed, within three days, the UOC-MP would have to stop using the property of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve, housing the Monastery of the Caves, one of Ukraine’s most important spiritual and historical sites.
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