There is no place for Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine - MP Mykola Kniazhytskyi

This is reported on Spotlight Ukraine | Espreso TV Channel. 

For more than a year, Ukraine has been actively discussing the need to ban the activities of the Ukrainian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, but there was no political will to do so. The member of the Ukrainian parliament explained the reason for this.

“Of course, there are several reasons. First of all, Ukraine is a democratic state. And, of course, we have been trying our best in order to make the state not to intrude into the affairs of the church, despite the fact that the Russian Church was a branch of the FSB and Putin's ideological tool through which he was making his politics. Of course, there were many politicians who depended on this church, but right now there are fewer of them, because they left the Ukrainian parliament when the war broke out. We now understand that there is no place for the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine,” Mykola Kniazhytskyi said. 

Russia manipulates the topic of religion, calling the searches conducted by Ukraine's Security Service in the temples of the Moscow Patriarchate an attack on the church itself. However, people should understand that the Russian Church in Ukraine is no longer a religious organization, but an anti-state political structure.

“If the head of the so-called church encourages everyone to kill Ukrainians and the priests take up weapons, it means that they are not an ideological organization, but a department of the FSB. They are fighting against us. So, this means that any activity of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the activity of any other organization that is connected with it, must be banned. If any religious association is not connected with the Russian Church, then, of course, it has the right to operate, because Ukraine is a democratic state,” the Ukrainian lawmaker noted. 

Since not all priests of the Moscow Patriarchate are traitors, Mykola Kniazhytskyi named the main condition for continuing their work in Ukraine.

“If they prove that they have nothing to do with the Russian Orthodox Church, of course, they can be registered and act as priests in Ukraine. They have to be independent from Russia,” he concluded.