Patriarch Filaret on President Yanukovych's church policy

In answer to the question of why President Leonid Kuchma was once an opponent of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate and then changed his mind, Patriarch Filaret said: "Leonid Danylovych understood that the Kyivan Patriarchate is widely supported by the people and therefore one cannot build the Ukrainian state without the Kyivan Patriarchate. I think that the current president will also understand that he is the Ukrainian president and not a Russian governor, and we support him as the Ukrainian president.

In answer to the question of why President Leonid Kuchma was once an opponent of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and then changed his mind, the head of the Kyivan Patriarchate, Patriarch Filaret, told ZAXID.NET: "Leonid Danylovych understood that the Kyivan Patriarchate is widely supported by the people and therefore one cannot build the Ukrainian state without the Kyivan Patriarchate. I think that the current president will also understand that he is the Ukrainian president and not a Russian governor, and we support him as the Ukrainian president."

In response to the question of what he expects from the meeting with Viktor Yanukovych, the head of the UOC-KP said: "We would like to deliver to him the idea that the state should treat equally all the denominations and not to treat positively the Moscow Patriarchate while treating the others as something secondary and temporary. We also have questions regarding the new draft law on the freedom of worship and religious organizations, with which we are not satisfied: we wrote about it together with all the heads of the Christian Churches. There are many other things which we would like to discuss with him."

As for the bill on the freedom of worship, Patriarch Filaret noted that it envisages granting the status of a legal entity to the church.

"As of today, the status of a legal entity has been given to eparchies, parishes, educational institutions, and monasteries, but not the church as such. Why are we not pleased with granting such a status? Because the struggle for property will begin. We are afraid that the Moscow Patriarchate would claim the churches of the Kyivan Patriarchate. It will return the tension that was present at the beginning of 1990s in western Ukraine when the churches were distributed among the Orthodox and Greek Catholics. We would not like a new wave of such confrontation to begin."