All-Ukrainian Council of Churches Calls President Not to Change Law on Freedom of Worship Hastily

On behalf of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, the chairman of the Council of Churches, Bishop Markian Trofymiak, has sent  an address on the protection of the freedom of worship to President Viktor Yanukovych and the head of the State Committee on Nationalities and Religions, Yurii Bohutskyi, reports the Institute of Religious Freedom.

The heads of the confessions stressed that the consideration by the parliament of the initiatives on altering the current Law of Ukraine “On Freedom of Worship and Religious Organizations” is relevant “only on condition of the principled agreement of all the subjects of the law-making process on the importance of religious freedom in Ukraine as one of the greatest achievements of our state in the area of ensuring of rights and freedoms of a person.”

Representatives of the churches and religious organizations of Ukraine are unanimous in their position that such an important decision as revising the law on the freedom of conscience should not be made hastily and in the current conditions of transformation of the political system.

“It is important to engage at all the stages of this process the representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, that is interested subjects whose opinion should be taken into account,” stress the addresses.  

Therefore, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious organizations called Viktor Yanukovych to decontrol the fulfillment of the paragraph of the presidential instruction charging the government with development and submitting to the parliament’s consideration by December 1, 2010, the new wording of the Law of Ukraine “On Freedom of Worship and Religious Organizations.”