There are more than 8,000 churches of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate operating in Ukraine: when will the draft law banning their activities be considered?
The draft law on amendments to some laws of Ukraine regarding the activities of religious organizations in Ukraine (№ 8371), the adoption of which would finally prohibit the functioning of the Moscow Church on the territory of the state, was adopted in the first reading back in October of last year. The other day, the text of the draft law, prepared for the second reading, was supposed to appear on the website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. However, it has not been made public yet. The Verkhovna Rada office stated that the final version of the comparative table for the draft law will appear after consideration by the Main Legal Department.
“According to the Regulations of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, draft laws for the second reading are published on the official website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine after they pass a legal examination. According to the Regulations, the final version of the comparative table for consideration by the Parliament in the second reading is prepared by its specialized Committee, after which forwards it to the Main Legal Department of the Apparatus of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which conducts such an examination. The final version of the comparative table to draft law No. 8371 with a volume of 917 pages for conducting a legal examination was provided to the Main Legal Department by the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy on May 1, 2024 at 4:00 p.m.: 30. As of May 3, 2024, the comparative table for the said draft law is being worked out in the Main Legal Department, after which it will be published on the official website of the Verkhovna Rada,” – noted in the press service of the parliament apparatus.
The Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy asked the department to explain why the text of the draft law is not available on the parliament’s website.
According to the data published on the portal “opendatab”, currently 8,097 churches connected with Russia continue to function in Ukraine. At the beginning of 2022, there were 8,782 of them. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, 685 churches have come under the control of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
The most transitions were recorded in 2023. During the past year, 386 communities converted to the OCU. From December last year to April 2024, a total of 96 churches were transferred to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
“The largest number of institutions changed their religious orientation in Kyiv region — 164, as well as in Khmelnytskyi and Vinnytsia — 155 and 75,” Opendatabot notes.
