Ukrainian MPs issue ultimatum on Moscow Patriarchate ban

This was reported on Sunday, July 21, 2024, by the editor-in-chief of the LB.ua portal, Ukrainian journalist Sonya Koshkina, citing her own sources.

"About 70 MPs (including members of European Solidarity, Voice, and majoritarian Servants), according to LB.ua sources, have given an ultimatum to the leadership of the Servant of the People and the Verkhovna Rada: if the bill on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) is not on the agenda next week, they will not vote for anything at all, except for the extension of martial law," she said.

According to LB.ua, the bill managed to collect the required 226 votes for the second reading, but more votes are needed "for safety net.”

According to Sonya Koshkina, the presidential mono-majority has MPs who are strongly against the final positive vote on the bill and those who are hesitant. Each of these groups, the journalist emphasizes, has several dozen MPs.

Over 60 MPs from the Servant of the People party have not yet signed in support of the bill banning the UOC-MP and do not intend to support it in the second reading. According to the updated list of signatories, they are Jean Beleniuk, Yevhen Bragar, Maksym Buzhansky, Danylo Hetmantsev, Pavlo Halimon, Heorhiy Mazurashu, Yuriy Koryavchenkov, Serhiy Kalchenko, Oksana Dmitrieva, Yulia Yatsyk (who recently left the SN faction), Maksym Pavliuk, Artem Kultenko, Natalia Loktionova, Maksym Perebyinis, Margarita Shol, and Pavlo Yakymenko.

More than 30 other Servant of the People party's members are still hesitating to support the ban on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), including the head of the faction David Arakhamia, the head of the parliamentary committee on law enforcement Serhiy Ionushas, MPs Oleksandr Kachura, Anna Purtova, Andriy Klochko, Viacheslav Medianyk, Oleh Seminskyi, Yulia Hryshyna, Oleksiy Kuznietsov, Oleksiy Ustenko, and Ihor Vasyliev. 

In addition, according to the sources, the head of the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, is allegedly actively "disrupting" signatures against the adoption of the draft law. 

At the same time, LB.ua reported that last week the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy of the Verkhovna Rada reviewed comments from Viktor Yelenskyi, head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, on the current version of the bill from various churches, including Protestant denominations, and made relevant amendments. The agency has now supported the updated version of the draft law.

Origin of the law banning the Moscow Patriarchate

Pro-Ukrainian political forces and social movements have been calling for the closure of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine since the early years of independence. The authorities addressed this issue substantively only after the full-scale Russian invasion, when law enforcement began to document widespread assistance to the Russian army by Moscow Patriarchate structures and hierarchs.

On December 1, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy enacted a decision by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to ban the activities of religious organizations linked to Russian centers of influence in Ukraine. The preparation and consideration of the relevant government bill took almost a year.

The greatest resistance to the legislative process came from the parliamentary groups Platform for Life and Peace and Restoration of Ukraine, which include former members of Yanukovych's and Medvedchuk's Party of Regions, as well as certain factions within the Servant of the People party.

Ultimately, the draft law "On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine on the Activities of Religious Organizations in Ukraine" (No. 8371), which bans the Moscow Patriarchate, was voted on in the first reading in October 2023 and signed by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

MP Mykola Kniazhytskyi's alternative draft law precedes government version

Ukrainian politician and MP Mykola Kniazhytskyi (European Solidarity party), who successfully developed the law "On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language" in 2019, proposed his own version of the law to terminate the activities of the Moscow Patriarchate Church. He criticized the government's draft law as "toothless."

His bill, No. 8221, titled "On Ensuring the Strengthening of National Security in the Field of Freedom of Conscience and Activities of Religious Organizations," aimed to introduce effective legal mechanisms to strip the Moscow Patriarchate of its influence on property and public opinion, rather than relying on purely declarative measures. Although the bill received a favorable opinion from the relevant parliamentary committee and was registered by the Verkhovna Rada on November 23, 2022, a week before the NSDC decision, it was never submitted to the session hall. The document received unanimous support from the committee on December 23, 2022.