The Cabinet of Ministers submitted to the Verkhovna Rada a draft law “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine on the Activities of Religious Organizations in Ukraine”, which seeks to ban the activities of churches in Ukraine whose leadership is located in a state waging armed aggression against Ukraine.

At the moment, the text of the bill itself has not yet been published on the website of the parliament, however, as Taras Melnichuk, the government representative in parliament, said, document No. 8371 makes it impossible for religious organizations to operate in Ukraine, the governing center of which is located outside Ukraine in a state carrying out armed aggression against Ukraine.

The purpose of the adoption of the law is to ensure spiritual independence and prevent a split in society on religious grounds, promote the consolidation of Ukrainian society and protect national interests.

To this end, the bill, according to Melnichuk, provides for amendments to the law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations” and “On State Registration of Legal Entities, Individuals - Entrepreneurs and Public Formations”.

In fact, we are talking about a ban on the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), which officially has the status of autonomy within the Russian Orthodox Church.

Despite the fact that in 2018 the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew canceled the decision of the act of 1686, which granted the Moscow Patriarch the right to consecrate the Metropolitan of Kyiv, and subsequently issued a tomos on the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, allowing the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches to create a single Orthodox Church, the majority of the UOC-MP did not come out from under the wing of the Moscow Patriarchate.

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Recall that at the end of May 2022, the Synod of the UOC-MP issued a decision on complete independence from the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as on disagreement with the position of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow on the war in Ukraine. However, as noted in her article " UOC-MP(o)"

At the same time, “concern for canonical Orthodoxy” in Ukraine does not leave the Kremlin’s agenda.. And as Yekaterina Shchetkina notes in her article "