Believers of Stary Gvozdets urge the President to stop discrimination of the UOC

The believers from Stary Gvozdets village and the UOC clergy addressed the President with a protest against the discrimination of the UOC, arbitrariness of the authorities and against anti-church bills. It is reported by the First Cossack.

"Mr. President, you used to go to our churches, visit our monasteries. For the sake of peace and order in the state, do not adopt these laws," urges Igor Vivcharik, a believer in the community of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Stary Gvozdets.

"These laws bear international enmity. Our contingent is primarily multinational, and it is impossible to put the entire Ukraine on a par with one Galicia," priest Yury Gichko of the Holy Trinity Church Rzhyshchev believes.

The Orthodox Ukrainian from the village of Stary Gvozdets Oksana Pernarovskaya tells about cases of physical violence against believers of the UOC and asks President Poroshenko to restore law and justice.

The priest of the Volyn eparchy of the UOC, Protopriest Oleg Tochinsky, calls on MPs not to accept and not to vote on anti-church bills, including bill No. 4128, which worsen the position of believers inside the country and impair the international image of Ukraine.

Earlier, international non-governmental human rights organizations appealed to the Ukrainian authorities to stop discrimination against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and to withdraw draft laws Nos. 4128, 4511, 5309, aimed at restricting rights and discriminating religious organizations of the UOC.