In the letter, Metropolitan Luke and Archbishop Ephrem draw the President’s attention to numerous violations of the Constitution in relation to the UOC.

On March 19, 2021, Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhzjia and Melitopol and Archbishop Ephrem of Berdiansk and Primorsk, together with representatives of the clergy, met with the head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional State Administration Alexander Starukh and handed over a letter to President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, reports the press service of the Zaporizhzhia Eparchy.

In this letter, the bishops, on behalf of all Orthodox believers of the Zaporizhzhia region, draw the attention of the President of Ukraine to the constant and systemic violation of the Constitution in church-state relations, expressed in open attacks on the UOC and persecutions by the powers that be and right-wing radicals.

“This is manifested in the adoption by the previous Verkhovna Rada of unconstitutional anti-church laws. Local authorities are indifferent, and sometimes actively participate in the seizure of churches of the UOC, prevent registration and re-registration of the communities’ Statutes, and so on,” says the message on the eparchy’s website.

The meeting with the Zaporizhzhia governor was held in an atmosphere of mutual understanding, the hierarchs noted that it was impossible to tolerate open harassment from civil servants any longer and asked the governor of Zaporizhzhia to take this appeal seriously.

The governor listened to the representatives of the clergy of the Zaporizhzhia region and promised to hand the appeal to the President of Ukraine, as well as to study the problems of the Church-state relations in the Zaporizhzhia region.

The text of the Appeal:

Dear Mr President!

On behalf of all the faithful children of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who live in the Zaporizhzhia region, your voters, citizens of Ukraine, we ask you to hear our appeal.

You are the sovereign of our country and the guarantor of the observance of the rights of citizens, you have the right to initiate legislation under Article 93 of the Constitution of Ukraine: “The right to initiate legislation in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine belongs to the President of Ukraine, a people’s deputy of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.” The bills identified by the President of Ukraine as urgent are considered by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine out of turn. ” We ask you to show in practice how you hear us, citizens of Ukraine, and not to allow the violation of the fundamental Law of Ukraine.

Over the years, we have felt an increase in religious discrimination. Anti-church laws are adopted (Law of Ukraine dated December 20, 2018, No. 2662-VIII, Law of Ukraine dated January 17, 2019, No. 2673-VIII c), local religious communities are not registered, the Constitution is violated, churches are seized, believers are subjected to violence.

In their country, in their cities and villages, millions of Orthodox believers are made to feel like outcasts. The media pour out megatons of lies against our Mother Church and Her faithful children. Based on the legislative narrative, they want to turn us into “under-citizens”. Some false patriots demand that we be labelled as animals. We remember from history that this already happened in Europe, when “distinctive marks” were used to distinguish between nationalities. Is such segregation really possible in our country, which positions itself as a rule-of-law state? Not a single infringement of our rights and their restrictions have received a proper legal assessment, and if the courts make decisions in favour of our Church, then these decisions are simply not carried out.

Bills No. 5101, 5143, 5144 submitted for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada, which provide for amendments to a number of normative acts that create the possibility of liquidating religious (and not only) organizations for a wide range of reasons (glorification, collaboration, etc.), for which there is a political order that returns us to the atmosphere of the Soviet Union during 1937.

Our priests are not allowed to take care of our believers in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine reports on the assistance of the authorities to a separate confession, and the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada act as postmen of this religious and political organization. We are outraged that all the above is state interference in church affairs.

We care about our homeland, we help our citizens, we want only one thing – the observance of the Constitution, observance of our rights. We ask you to hear us, believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church!

Dear Volodymyr Oleksandrovych, we urge you to influence the situation that has developed in our country since you as the President of Ukraine have full power to end the outrage and autocracy.

The days of Great Lent are full of temptations and, realizing this, we, keeping love in our hearts, ask you to return respect to the Constitution and to our people!

On behalf of the faithful children of the Zaporizhzhia and Berdiansk Eparchies 
of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

+ Luke Metropolitan of Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol

+ Ephrem, Archbishop of Berdiansk and Primorsk

As previously reported, the cross procession on the Day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy will be held with a miraculous icon in Zaporizhzhia.