Priests Show Interest in Local Elections in Ukraine

With the blessing of their bishops, priests participate in the elections and are included in the party voting lists and in the voting lists for majority voting.  The author of a reportage broadcasted by the Channel 5, Lesia Holovata states that “today, Ukrainian priests care not only about spiritual problems of their communities but also about the material ones." "For this purpose, they run in the elections for the local councils!” she said.

According to 5ua, “the most active donors of candidate priests are the following two denominations: Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate and Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate.” According to the report, the clergymen are ready to consider proposals “from all political forces which do not profess atheism.” As it turned out, the only limitation for candidates in ropes is “not to agitate from the pulpit.” According to the TV channel, the arguments of the two churches are the same: “the mandate will help to purify the politics from the inside and lobby the church interests.” 

The head of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the UOC-MP, Heorhii Kovalenko explained that the “power circle is a closed club which settles many questions. I can see sense in these things only to bring the opinion of the church to the local authorities. For there can be no other mechanism.”

The spokesman of the UOC-KP, Bishop Yevstratii (Zoria) stresses that “without the mandate no one wants to even pay attention to the church, they do not allocate land plots on principle or do not permit construction on principle.”

“Priests in Ukraine always enjoy authority and influence public opinion. Very often, especially in rural areas, what the priest says is the ultimate truth,” explained the head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, Oleksandr Chernenko.  

The synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Catholic Church prohibited its priests to run in any elections. In an interview to Channel 5, the head of the UGCC, Patriarch Lubomyr, said that a parish priest should serve the whole community including adherents of different political forces and “encourage people to honest political service.” According to the patriarch, a priest “cannot assume partial responsibility for what is happening in the community in view of his affiliation to a certain political community.”