Ukrainian Churches call on President Yanukovych to hold off on new edition of law on religious freedom
On July 19 leaders of the denominations of Ukraine held a session of All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO). The meeting was held under the chairmanship of the senior pastor the Union of Free Churches of Christians of Evangelical Faith, Vasyl Raichyntsia, in the Ukrainian Bible House, reports the Institute for Religious Freedom.
Among the guests present were top officials of the Ministry of Culture, State Committee on Nationalities and Religions, the National Expert Committee for the Protection of Public Morality, representatives of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Institute for Religious Freedom.
The participants discussed church-state relations in Ukraine, in particular the question of updating the legislation on freedom of religion.
In his presentation, Yurii Bohutskyi, first deputy minister of culture, described the results of the Working Group of the Ministry on the Preparation of Draft Laws on Freedom of Conscience.
According to him, the working group concluded that the commitment of Ukraine to the Council of Europe, including PACE documents, does not require Ukraine to approve a new Law of Ukraine “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations.”
Bishop Yevstratii, secretary of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate, recalled the position of All-Ukrainian Council of Churches, which believes making hasty changes to the current law is impracticable. Thus, in the opinion of the working group, legislation on restitution of church property should be complex and concern not only to the return of former religious buildings.
“The joint position of the denominations in the raised question remained unchanged – due to the absence of a consensus on the proposed amendments at this stage, updating the new edition of Law of Ukraine ‘On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations’ should be delayed,” the AUCCRO stressed in its statement to President Yanukovych.
In addition, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches will initiate meetings with the heads of the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Social Policy and the State Tax Service of Ukraine to discuss issues of church-state relations and ways to solve them.
According to Yaakov Dov Bleich, Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine, the religious organizations’ international contacts of have recently begun to deteriorate because of the adoption of the government’s new procedures for issuing visas to enter Ukraine. The AUCCRO decided to appeal to the prime minister to conduct a special inter-agency meeting to solve problems in this area.
During the meeting, Vasyl Kostytskyi, chairman of the National Expert Committee on the Protection of Public Morality (NEC), spoke about the results of the period 2010-2011.
According to the heads of denominations, the activities of the NEC in recent years has contributed to strengthening moral values ??in Ukraine and to protecting children from abuse by unscrupulous activities of the media. In their address to the president of Ukraine, they expressed their support for the NEC and called on the head of state to drop the idea of ??eliminating this public expert body.
The representatives of the denominations also discussed proposals for developing the international activities of the AUCCRO for the second half of 2011. The council has planned a series of meetings and events of international character.
