in principle, i am against the russian orthodox church existing in ukraine. yes, and a very logical, logical answer, they bless the war, it's not normal, and i think they don't belong here, that's for sure. i would simply pack these priests and send them back to russia. let them do what they want there. well, you see, they have a whole agency network. developed, i don't understand, in a country where a war is going on, in a country in which a war is going on, how can such a thing be allowed at all, you understand why i think so, because the russian orthodox church has long ceased to be about religion, that is, there is a so-called orthodoxy of the brain, and it is about that people, these papists use religion to cover their anti-ukrainian activities. well, of course,

there should be a ukrainian church in ukraine, and a russian church should be in russia. 65% of ukrainians believe that the russian orthodox church and moscow patriarch kirill encourage and support russia's aggression against ukraine. 47% believe that representatives of the uoc -mp spread russian propaganda and justify russia's actions. 34 are convinced that the priests of the uoc... are cooperating with the occupying russian authorities, they lined up cars under the church fence, supported them with military equipment, and at that moment father viktor came out of the church with some man, well, not in a typical uniform, well, i understand that these are the special services, and he told us that we were detained, that...

a special check would be conducted on us, this it will take about a day or two, at this point the father said, place the people. do we have a chance to solve the issue of historical scale? yes, if the parliament finally considers in the second reading the bill on banning the activities of the russian orthodox church. churches operate under the cover of the so- called uocmp, this is unheard of, but on the third year of the great war, this problem has not yet been solved. we cannot postpone its solution to the post-war period. the last fortress of moscow in ukraine must fall, only one step remains. at the end of may , the opposition blocked the rostrum of the verkhovna rada. it was a desperate move for the first time since the invasion.

but the circumstances are also extreme: the opposition deputies demanded protection from the authorities, protection for the soldiers at the front and protection for all ukrainians in tela. therefore, they insisted that the parliament first create a temporary investigative commission to find out who is responsible for lack of fortification at the front. second, he introduced a bill banning the activities of the russian orthodox church into the agenda. the draft law on banning the russian orthodox church passed all procedures. it took almost two years. we wrote it in the parliament. balanced effective law. it was not easy, we had to overcome the resistance of roc lobbyists and make difficult compromises. but when it remained to make the final decision to vote in the second reading, everything stopped. on may 21, at the parliament's conciliatory council, representatives of the servant of the people and the opzh did not support the proposal to include the law on the prohibition of the russian orthodox church in the order daily. the position of the pro-moscow fifth column from opzzh is known, but it is not clear why the servants of the people. they ignore president zelenskyi,

who called for the issue to be resolved in the legal field. unfortunately, even russian terror and a full-scale war did not convince some activists that it is worth overcoming the temptation of evil. with these and other decisions, we guarantee ukraine's spiritual independence. i want to emphasize: in 1991, our state started on a legal and... democratic path, we will continue on this path, only legal ones steps, balanced decisions and national interests. the opposition had to block the tribune. heated discussions continued in speaker stepanchuk's office. as a result, the servants agreed to collect signatures, if there are enough of them, to introduce the draft law for consideration in the second reading. but here we have to watch our hands. i will tell you later how they can bury

this law, or delay the case again for months or even years, and while we remember how it was done until now, the majority of factions in the parliament support it. prohibiting the activities of the russian orthodox church. the nsdc made a relevant decision. the main thing is the will of the people. 63% of ukrainians approve of a direct ban on the activities of moscow priests. as early as december 1, 2022, president zelensky instructed the cabinet of ministers to develop and submit to the verkhovna rada for consideration a draft law on banning religious organizations that are managed from russia. it took two months. not two months have passed, almost two years have already passed. what went wrong? why... with the liquidation of the russian network in ukraine has become so confused: who is saving the kremlin church? i will tell the still unknown details, because only through publicity we can with you disrupt the situation, only our mobilization will force the authorities to finally vote for the banning of the russian orthodox church. why not accepted, you ask? well, what can i

say? because there are lobbyists in the verkhovna rada, not only there... because as far as i read there, the chief representative of the russian orthodox church had his bracelet removed even now, for example, why was it removed, what the hell did he do to him there to pray or something, and so a person sits at home to himself, well, that is, there are a lot of questions, probably that there are such blinds, because incompetent people sit in their positions, simply, you understand, those who simply blame their citizens and their duties, the beginning of the war, they realized it, because they needed it for trends, we are the verkhovna rada, we are for... ukraine , we woke up like this, we are for the ukrainian language, for they will accept everything that is ukrainian, vyshyvankas, borschts and everything, everything, and what has not been voted on so far, it is not profitable for anyone to accept this law, of course, we understand that there are rats in the verkhovna rada, in the presidential administration, who

must be poisoned, by the evening they will all die, in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, we commemorate patriarch and pray for him, i recently met him. as our patriarch kirill once said, there should be a symphony between the church and the state. after the full-scale invasion, ukrainians were shocked by the cooperation of roc priests with the invaders. indignation grew rapidly. the authorities, which cooperated with the moscow patriarchate before the war, could no longer ignore the facts of mass collaboration, espionage, and adjusting the fire of pro-russian agitation. appointment of vasyl malyuk as head of the sbu in the fall of 22, the special service began to investigate these episodes. as millions of ukrainians, i supported such actions of the security services, but at the same time i understood that this issue cannot be solved only by the forces of the special services. system solutions are needed.

hopes that the church communities would independently get out of the control of patriarch kirill, who called for the destruction of ukraine, did not come true. in the third year of the great war, only 685 church... ties with the russian orthodox church, this is less than 10% of their total number of more than 800. it must be admitted that the moscow church in ukraine withstood the first blow, they managed to deceive most communities and convince them , that mp now an independent church and has no relation to cyril. the provision on the connection with the russian orthodox church was excluded from the church charter, except for the reference to the letter of patriarch alexy ii from the beginning of the 90s. but it was such a tactical ruse. in january of the 23rd year, the state examination established that the uocp remains a structural division of the russian orthodox church and the canonical connection with it has not been severed. neither the metropolitan council nor the synod of bishops addressed moscow with a message about breaking ties with the russian orthodox church. therefore, the uoc will continue

to be canonically and organizationally subordinated organization headed by patriarch kirill. many priests and bishops still commemorate him. it is not by chance that only the pcmp is allowed to serve in... temporarily occupied territories, while lyricists of the ocu, gcc and protestants are kidnapped and killed. while the legal casuistry continued, ukrainians switched to other problems. the roc felt that public attention to it had decreased and went on the counter-offensive. it continues to this day and may even end with the victory of the moscow church. in two years, only 19 court verdicts were issued, several more by priests. hierarchs were exchanged for our prisoners of war. that's all. i foresaw that this would happen, so as soon as the sbu began to investigate cases against the servants of the russian orthodox church, i registered bill 8221 banning the activities of this organization

in ukraine. at that time, there were already enough facts to claim that this structure had lost its religious features and was performing military tasks. i shot two films. investigation on the need to ban the activities of the russian orthodox church, where he thoroughly outlined his proposals. in the end, my bill was registered and supported all pro-ukrainian factions, as well as... unanimously the profile committee of the parliament, where the majority consists of deputies from the people's servants, but the authorities themselves did not notice him. finally, in the winter of 23, the government submitted its draft law 8371, but time passed and it became clear that no one was serious about banning the russian orthodox church. the government document was ignored, as was mine. the spring of the 23rd year has come. the tension in society grew because the russian orthodox church continued to commit crimes and provocations. in what basis? and you did not let our two dead boys in here to die, where is yours conscience, i will tell you something so that you understand

what i cannot earn with them, if you want to serve the funeral of the chaplain or the ocu, then i do not ask me to take it to the church, its priests forbade the funeral of the fallen ukrainians soldiers, i am asking you, fights with relatives and brothers of the heroes in the churches of the moscow patriarchate continued to spread anti-ukrainian agitation. in may of the 23rd year in khmelnytskyi, the hypodeacon beat a military man. what are you going to do with the military? hold it. no one should be taken out. i have nothing to breathe, but me i wonder what you have there or not, after

that a wave of public protests swept across ukraine, congregations of several cathedral churches left the russian orthodox church, in khmelnytskyi, rivne, lviv, the city councils took land and premises from the moscow church, the situation escalated, what actually happened is what i warned about, if the problem is not solved through the law, then the street will have its say: but during the war, any disturbances in our rear are in the hands of the enemy, and only in the fall of the 23rd, a year after the registration of my bill to the session hall finally the government document was presented, it was voted on in the first reading, although my draft law was already supported by the specialized committee, still i agreed to work on the government document to make it high-quality, because the document that came to the parliament from the cabinet of ministers did not decide at all no question, in detail... i analyzed its shortcomings in my previous films, but i will point out the main flaw: no one was going to

directly ban the activities of the entire russian orthodox church in ukraine. i wanted to consider each community separately, and there are almost 9,000 of them. it was necessary to go through several bureaucratic circles, and then all the courts with the risk of losing the case in the european court of human rights. this was an unrealistic task for many years. in my draft law, i proposed another way - to ban all structures of the russian orthodox church. because of their direct threat to national security. such an approach would not cause objections in europe. we already have such examples. i will talk about them later. however, the very fact that the authorities submitted their draft law was already our big victory. because they didn't even agree to that before. we won an important battle. our information activity, social pressure, activity of the sbu, forced the authorities to react. and after the vote in the first reading, it was time for analytical and lobbying work in the committee. the head of the committee, nikita poturaev, although he belongs to the presidential faction of the servant of the people, and i to the opposition european

solidarity, we both combined our efforts, we moved together in the right direction, not everything went well, for example, the committee did not support my proposal to introduce tomos to the law, but other fundamental amendments from draft law 8221 and we agreed to the bill on the decolonization of the cultural space. in particular, the basis for protecting the activities of the russian orthodox church is the national security interests of ukraine, which corresponds to the european convention on human rights and the judicial practice of the european court of human rights. the definition of ruskavamir as a criminal ideology, which is prohibited on the territory of our state, is introduced into the ukrainian legislation. the activities of other religious organizations that are affiliated with the control center in the country of the aggressor are prohibited. this one affiliation is determined by the court. the state returns to its ownership religious buildings and others. real estate in the event that a religious organization refuses to sever ties with the russian orthodox church or other organizations on

the territory of the aggressor's country. another winter of war has passed, but in the spring of the 24th, the russian orthodox church continues to operate in ukraine, although there is everything necessary to ban it. the military and political need to strengthen national security exists. the support of society is the loss of the russian orthodox a church of the nature of a religious organization, because. she became a co-disciple of armed aggression against ukraine, giving it a sacred character, of course, patriarch kirill personally, the clerics of the russian orthodox church justified aggression against ukraine. the most passionate. vinists in their sermons blessed the murders of ukrainians. you can't equip a pack of hail without prayers, you push every cigar, lord, have mercy, lord, have mercy, and so on, and so on, and so on, and then, uh, uh, not because you want to, you have to. but as an institution, it is russian orthodox

the church supported the genocidal war on march 27 , 2024. this day in the cathedral of christ the savior in moscow. the so-called world russian people's council was held, it was convened and conducted by kiril gundyaev. it was he who, even before the revolution of dignity and the start of the war with russia, presented the pseudo-theological concept of the russian world to putin. precisely thanks to cyril, this ideology in russia became the state base of future aggression, which is why the march council is called the present and future russian vamyra. according to its results , the so-called order was adopted, where there was a war in ukraine named the special military operation is a new stage in the national liberation struggle of the russian people against the criminal kyiv regime and the collective west behind it, which has been taking place on the lands of southwestern russia since 2014 . during the svo, the russian people with weapons in their hands defend their life, freedom, statehood, civilizational,

religious, national cultural identity, as well as the right to live on... their own land within the borders of a single russian state. it is special from a spiritual and moral point of view military operation is a holy war. this is nothing but a call for genocide, the destruction of ukrainians as a nation. and these statements did not go beyond the attention of the civilized world. already on april 17, 2024, the parliamentary assembly of the council of europe unanimously recognized the russian orthodox church as an instrument of kremlin propaganda and influence, and the head of the russian orthodox church the patriarch. contains strict characteristics of both the patriarch personally and the entire hierarchy. the regime of vladimir putin is committed to the neo-imperialist ideology of the russian world, which the kremlin has turned into a tool for promoting war the hierarchy of the moscow patriarchate

of the russian orthodox church upholds the ideology of russian peace, declaring. the war against ukraine and the satanic west is a holy war of all russians. the decisions of this council clearly showed that the russian orthodox church is a fundamentalist organization that ideologically serves the terrorist actions of its state. this is a kind of pseudo-orthodox hamas. this order also caused outrage in our parliament. some colleagues, who had hesitated before, decided to support the roc ban. but suddenly a new one appeared. obstacle. a few days later , a strange letter arrived at the moscow cathedral addressed to the leadership of the verkhovna rada. in it, the deputies were threatened with sanctions from the us and international courts if they dared to ban the russian orthodox church. the letter was written by an american-canadian lawyer, robert amsterdam. he was hired by an oligarch of russian origin and a sponsor of the russian orthodox church, vadym

novinsky, to protect the interests of the moscow patriarchate. a month before that, the lawyer had visited kyiv and spent eight days there. met with the head of the uoc, metropolitan onufriy berezovsky, and here are the results this trip decided to use threats to block the adoption of the law banning the russian orthodox church. if this law is voted in the council, our team will work to ensure that sanctions and other legal consequences are imposed on those who allowed the attack on freedom of religion in ukraine. of course, this is not true. there is no question of persecution on religious grounds, because the russian orthodox church is not a church, but... the same tool of the kremlin in the war as the fsb, the army or propaganda. this was clearly stated by the council of europe. for their part, parliamentarians accused robert amsterdam of interfering in internal affairs of ukraine and asked the sbu to contact the fbi to analyze his actions there. after that, the lawyer wrote another letter, in which he excused himself that in fact he did not threaten, but only

warned. it was just a change of tactics to avoid getting into trouble. decided to pursue not all. and specific deputies, on whom the adoption of the law depends the most. this draft law not only exposes people's deputies, such as stefanchuk, knyadzhitskyi, poturaev, kravchuk and others like them, to the threat of american sanctions, for violation of basic human rights, through bill 8371, zelenskyi will go down in history as a person who illegally imprisoned whistleblowers and destroyed the ukrainian one. church, the zelensky national assembly became a hostage of ultranationalists, but while we were solving one problem, others appeared. at some point it became clear that this is not accidental, but let's go in order. around the same time as the letter from the russian orthodox church lobbyist robert amsterdam , another letter was sent to the chairman of the verkhovna rada, ruslan stefanchuk, this time from of ukrainian experts on religion,

it contains as many as seven points that undermine the approved draft law. i will dwell on some of the most odious. in particular, religious scholars are outraged that the law will ban only the russian orthodox church, but other russian churches will continue to work. this is manipulation. the law offers a framework that can be expanded. experts, for example, can collect evidence about the crimes of other russian churches and on this basis demand their ban. currently, the sbu has such evidence only in relation to the russian orthodox church. the seventh point states: the authors of the editorial stubbornly drag the concept of national security into the draft law, although they cannot but know that the ninth article of the european convention on human rights does not operate with this concept. it is noteworthy that the mention of national security does not add anything to the draft law, does not make it any more effective, more efficient, legally perfect. but has come under fire from the human rights community, and is also a falsehood that strangely coincides with russian narratives. the bill does not deal with the right to practice religion, which

provided for in article nine of the convention. it applies only to activities of a religious organization that are directed against national security. and this is under the control of article 11 of the convention. numerous decisions of the european court of human rights contain conclusions about these differences. therefore, the mention of national security is a funda. the fundamental motive for the adoption of the law, but such a purposeful denial of the norm on the protection of national security only proved the correctness of our idea, it is necessary to ban the activities of the russian orthodox church on this very basis, it iron argument, because no state will allow religion to be used against public and national security, and ukraine is no exception. but the closer we got to introducing the bill for the second reading, the stronger the resistance became. the number of unexpected opponents grew. and now the main legal department of the verkhovna rada tried to undermine its approval, they wrote as many as 30 pages of comments, but the main claim, like that of rally experts, is to the norm about national

security. here they, in particular, write: at the same time no the constitution of ukraine and the european convention on human rights, to which the draft law refers, nor the international covenant on civil and political rights, which also protects these freedoms, which, however , is not mentioned in the text of the draft, do not provide for the possibility of limiting the rights to freedom. conscience, religion and association in religious organizations in the interests of national security, and as a conclusion, limiting the freedom of worldview and religion for the protection of national security is possible only during the period of martial law, and again for money, no one restricts the freedom of worldview and religion, the activity of specific structures that the aggressor state uses in the war with ukraine is prohibited, if the communities that are currently in unity with the russian orthodox church leave it, then the law on... will not apply, but it seems , such a deliberate replacement of concepts is not accidental. no one is even going to analyze the experience of other countries, members of the eu, which have passed much

harsher laws against the russian orthodox church. in september 22nd of the year, the sejm of latvia adopted the draft law submitted by the country's president eels levvits on withdrawal of the latvian orthodox church from the power of the moscow patriarchate. already in october, the cathedral of this church announced its withdrawal from the russian orthodox church. the updated law did not apply. canonical issues, by the way, like ours, but unlike ukraine, in latvia there is state control over the appointment of hierarchs, this is done so that moscow cannot annex the church from the inside, as they did in ukraine in 1992, so in latvia safeguards have been installed, after the election of the head of the church, metropolitans or bishops, the decision is up to him to publish the official printed body of the office of the president of the republic of latvia. it would seem that this is just a formality, but it is not. if there is no such... notification, the appointment is not valid, and it is the task of the special services to identify persons disloyal to the latvian state and submit information about them to the office of the president

of the republic. renunciation of any connection with the patriarch of moscow is an important issue for our orthodox, the entire latvian society and national security. definitely not, because i still remember from school that the state and religion must be separate. well, it's all politics in any case, it's... money and politics, so yes, of course, how they dispose of money and such sums and churches, well, land in general, then of course it should be approved not only by the church, but at least by the state. my personal opinion is that they should be approved directly by the sbu, you know, through a truth detector detector, through several checks, you know, the same way, let's say, how i was admitted to the village, it is written in the laws that the church is separate, we somehow have no involvement there , but if it affects... the social order and the constitutional sovereignty of the state, so here the question is no longer whether it is democracy or not, here the question is what correct decisions should be made, so i am inclined to say that

yes... it should be. therefore, the latvians had the same motivation as us, the protection of national security, and no one criticized them, the members of the european union, for this. perhaps the eu knows human rights worse than some ukrainian religious experts and lawyers. and now, with a tear for latvia , estonia is also going to ban the activity structures of the russian orthodox church. note that none of these countries have been attacked by moscow, but they are acting preemptively. and the ukrainian authorities have been marinating the law banning the moscow church for more than a year, which it wrote itself. what is this as sabotage? the same scandalous council on march 27, where the war in ukraine was called sacred, became the key reason that prompted the estonian authorities to closely engage with the russian church. to begin with, the estonian government summoned representatives of the russian orthodox church to explain such statements. and on april 11, the minister of internal affairs of estonia, lauri lenemets, declared that the russian orthodox church is nothing does not differ from islamic terrorists, directly subordinates to putin, so he

will offer. parliament to declare the russian orthodox church a terrorist organization. tallinn city hall took the building in the center of the capital, where the office was located, from the russian orthodox church. there are six more temples in line. estonian prime minister kaja kalas said that the russian orthodox church has turned into a radical propaganda machine that calls for the killing of innocent people. and she warned that she will not tolerate hostile war propaganda and those who spread it. the estonian parliament announced the roc the institution that military aggression of the russian federation. and the duties of the state were emphasized separately. in the modern world, the state must also protect the population from terrorist and other hostile propaganda and from calls to violence. it is a shame to admit, but despite the war and great suffering, patriotism, russian peace, pro-russian sentiments did not go anywhere from our politics and corridors of power. many officials and experts still demonstrate their commitment to the unity of the three brotherly

nations. and historical ties with russia in in quotation marks, they cover themselves, again in quotation marks, with democracy, the rule of law, freedom, conscience, our course towards europe, although the completely opposite meaning is hidden behind these terms. a real shock for the members of the parliamentary committee on humanitarian policy was the offer of public service on ethnopolitics and freedom of conscience. when we were already finishing work on amendments to the second reading, this government body made a provocation aimed at saving the russian orthodox church in... literally a few hours before the vote in the committee, hoping for inattention of the deputies, they introduced several amendments, in particular, the ethnopolitics service proposes the following: the ban, they say, will not apply to hierarchically subordinate structural divisions of the russian orthodox church on the territory of ukraine, which were formed and registered in accordance with the legislation of ukraine and are based in ukraine. such proposals of the state service for ethnopolitics

would protect the structures of the russian orthodox church. who work for us under the name uocp. why then adopt such a law at all? we spent so much time and effort in the committee to make a quality law that would really solve the problem, we were offered to throw it all in the trash. but des officials went further. they also proposed to implement the statute of the russian orthodox church into ukrainian legislation, i.e. to give the moscow church legal status in our country. how interesting it turns out, my proposal to include tomos in the law of the board. refused to support, and please introduce the statute of the russian orthodox church into the legal body of ukraine. such amendments are at least sabotage, if implicit work on interests of the enemy. i hope that someday we will learn about the motives. colleagues, who is in favor of recommending to the verkhovna rada to consider draft law number 8371 in the second reading, as a whole, taking into account the amendments to the comparative tables approved by the committee. please vote. kuturaev for. knyazhytsky za.

i congratulate you on the adoption of this important law by the committee. thank you very much colleagues, the decision was taken unanimously. fortunately, thanks to the vigilance of the committee, it was possible to repel this attempt to save the russian orthodox church in ukraine, but we have to understand. to feel and see what a wide circle of defenders and lobbyists the moscow church has gathered around itself in our country, even those who should demand a ban do the exact opposite. this is the main reason that even in the third year of the war, an extensive russian network of saboteurs, spies and propagandists is operating in ukraine. they are well organized.