VR Speaker: Banning UOC is not on Parliament’s agenda

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Stefanchuk said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine that the bill to ban the UOC will not be considered in the near future.

"We have been discussing this issue for a long time within our political groups. And despite the fact that everyone somewhere inside has their own internal decision <...>, we have agreed as follows: during the war we have no right to pass any law that splits the Ukrainian society," Stefanchuk said.

As reported, in March 2022 several draft laws to ban the UOC were registered in the Verkhovna Rada at once. One of them was authored by Oksana Savchuk, an MP of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, whose regional centre has only one temple of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The Advisor to the Head of the President’s Office Mykhaylo Podoliak was critical of the idea of banning the UOC and urged not to speculate on issues of faith.

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