Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko on Monday criticized a recent report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and urged the UN body to refrain from giving a political assessment of Kiev's actions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of the Moscow Patriarchate
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th March, 2023) Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko on Monday criticized a recent report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and urged the UN body to refrain from giving a political assessment of Kiev's actions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of the Moscow Patriarchate.
On March 24, the OHCHR published a report on the human rights situation in Ukraine, which claims that "official actions targeting the UOC could be discriminatory."
"Ukraine is a democratic state, in which freedom of religion is guaranteed. At the same time, freedom (of religion) is not identical with the right to engage in activities that undermine national security. We call on the OHCHR to refrain from unbalanced political assessments and base its reports on facts," Nikolenko wrote in a social media post.
Tension between Kiev and the UOC escalated after Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. On March 10, 2023, UOC monks were ordered to leave the monastery of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, jurisdiction over which was divided between a Ukrainian cultural organization and the UOC, by March 29 for violating the terms of an agreement on the use of state property. Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said the monks could stay in the Lavra if they joined the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, termed the decision by Ukrainian officials to expel the UOC monks repressive.
The OCU was established in 2018 as an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church whose canonical territory is Ukraine. The Russian Orthodox Church considers the OCU to be non-canonical.
