Novinsky: UOC is the Church of Ukrainians, its renaming is against people

Non-factional deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Vadim Novinsky. Photo: Screen from YouTube

On December 3, 2019, non-factional deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Vadim Novinsky, in an interview with “Kozak1”, assessed the bill on renaming the UOC and said that a new bill, aimed at resolving the religious sphere, was introduced to the Verkhovna Rada.

The MP noted, “The UOC, led by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, is the only canonical Church in our country, the successor of the Church, which was created under the leadership of the Holy Prince Vladimir. There are no other Churches – the rest are just political organizations bearing religious names.”

“This is the Church of the Ukrainian people. The priests who serve there are Ukrainians, hierarchs are also Ukrainians, and people who go there are Ukrainians, too,” he added.

Vadim Novinsky believes: the idea of renaming the UOC is an integral part of the anti-people policy of former President Petro Poroshenko, which led to the fact that he is no longer the president.

Speaking about the fate of the bill aimed at ending the church raiding, the Parliamentarian noted, “We have developed a comprehensive bill to regulate the religious sphere; now it will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada and we hope that, in cooperation with other factions, it will be successful and will be voted."

According to him, the new bill is designed to eliminate all the contradictions created by the draft law introduced by the deputy of the previous convocation of the Verkhovna Rada, Viktor Yelensky, who legitimized church raiding.

“After all, with the help of the current law, a lot of parishes have been transferred to the OCU mainly by force. The OCU itself doesn’t build anything!” he added.

As reported by UOJ, earlier Verkhovna Rada MP Vadim Novinsky explained that the arguments of the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports Vladimir Borodiansky about the forced renaming of the UOC show that among the representatives of the new government there are those who deja vu the policy of former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.

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