Patriarch Lubomyr: Present state leadership is afraid of church

During the 20 years of independence, the church and state have been learning how to treat each other. However, the present leadership, which was brought up under the Soviet regime, is afraid of the church and would like to control it, for the church is the basis for independence and freedom. This opinion was expressed by the former head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Patriarch Lubomyr (Husar) in his interview to RISU.

The patriarch noted that for him there was no significant difference between the four presidents and different systems of power active in Ukraine during that time: “They talk a lot about democracy and other things. But I see no difference.” However, the bishop thinks that the state does respect the church, “probably as it is afraid of it.”

“There are various churches, denominations, religious organizations in Ukraine, but during the last 20 years, no one intended to organize a revolution or revolutionary movements. However, anyone preaching the truth and freedom is always dangerous for authorities who wish to control everything. Therefore, in general, I would say that the attitude (editor: of the state to the church) is not bad, even though the authorities wanted to control the churches. And today, it is doing the same thing, it wants to control the churches out of fear. And this is quite natural. If we had the freedom, truth and justice, about which the church speaks, we would look different,” stresses the patriarch.

“The church is the basis for independence, freedom, basis for the people who think that they understand what human dignity is, make some efforts to ensure this freedom is respected, seek the truth, justice,” noted Bishop Lubomyr. One of the examples of such an active influence of the church on social events, according to him, is its prayer participation in the Orange Revolution. “We did not want any fundamental sociological, political changes. The people wanted the truth and justice. I think that the authorities should be extremely careful with respect to the Church and should try to ensure that the Church should not initiate anything contrary to the authorities’ policies, God forbid.”

At the same time, the former head of the UGCC views as positive the fact that, according to the Ukrainian Constitution, the church is separated from the state.

“The separation of the state from the church is quite natural as these are two sociological and social groups with very different aims. The church is for the spiritual good of the people, the religious good of the people and, first of all, everything following from there. And the state is to ensure the well-being, as much as possible, even though it is not the most important thing, for each person to be able to live in peace. At the same time, the state must care also about the spiritual values: about science, culture, the freedom of the church. That is they complement each other. And it is good that they are separated.”

According to Bishop Lubomyr, the church is not against the state, the church and state complement each other. And when the church preaches the freedom, it is not because the state does not do that. The church preaches freedom because it is a consistent understanding of human dignity. “Therefore, I consider this separation natural and useful for Ukraine, for if the state begins to rule the churches or if the churches begin to rule the state, woe to us. It will make no one happy.”