No prohibitions will force believers to renounce the canonical Church, – expert

Those who forbid these or those confessions should remember: this did not bring benefits to the states in whose name these crimes were committed, said in an interview with "Phrase" an expert in religion, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences and chairman of the State Committee of Ukraine for Nationalities and Religions in 2009-2010 Yuri Reshetnikov.

"If we talk about the UOC, the Kiev Metropolitanate is in Ukraine. Therefore, attempts to imagine that the governing center of this religious organization is allegedly located somewhere on the territory of the aggressor state are nothing more than political speculation and manipulation of public opinion.

Obviously, if we are building a democratic country where European legal documents and our own Constitution are respected, then there can be no question of such prohibitions. Because such restrictions, no matter how fine and patriotic slogans they are introduced under, are a clear sign of authoritarian regimes.

In addition, I will remind you that the Church is not an abstraction or only a hierarchy, but people, citizens of Ukraine. Can a state that has chosen a democratic vector of development, paid for with the blood of the best sons and daughters of our people, believers of different faiths, prohibit the activities of Ukraine's largest religious community, which includes several tens of millions of citizens? The question is rhetorical. On the other hand, it is dangerous for the future of our state.

It is also clear that no prohibitions will force believers to renounce their religion and the Church. The Soviet experience clearly shows this. I would like to remind the hotheads who clearly do not want the Ukrainians' welfare, trying to ban certain confessions, that the last century knew examples of not only prohibitions, but also internment, deportations and even mass annihilation of people for their religious affiliation. But in no case it benefited the states in whose name these crimes were committed," the expert explained.