Committee on Bioethics of UOC-MP Considers Law on Demographic Register

On 18 October, in the Kyiv Cave Monastery, a working session of the Committee on bioethics and ethical matters of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) was held under the headship of the Vicar of the Kyiv Metropolitanate, Bishop Ilarii (Shyshkivskyi).

The participants of the session considered the question of introduction in Ukraine of the Unified Demographic Register and electronic biometrical identification of citizens according to the newly passed law “On the Unified Demographic State Register  and documents confirming the Ukrainian citizenship, identifying the person or their special status.”

According to the web site of UOC-MP, the participants noted that the law directly concerns the Orthodox Christian creed in its anthropological. Ethical and eschatological dimensions. The participants came to the conclusion that the recognition of the system of biometric identification as the basis of social relations is a radical restriction of human freedom and that being part of this system is a challenge to the Christian conscience and is spiritually understood as giving up one’s personality and freedom given by God. The fact that there is no alternative to the passed law and proposed system of the electronic register outside which a person cannot function in the society provoked special concern of the participants.