Yesterday, the leaders of the Batkivshchyna party met with representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO). At the meeting, the participants discussed the need to release former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the refusal to pass laws granting rights to sexual minorities.
Yesterday, the leaders of the Batkivshchyna party met with representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO). At the meeting, the participants discussed the need to release former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the refusal to pass laws granting rights to sexual minorities, Kommersant informs.
The head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate, Patriarch Filaret (Denysenko), addressing the topic of European integration, said that we should “go to rich Europe, not to poor Russia.”
“I appeal to you and in absentia to Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko to do everything possible to sign the agreement. Remaining issues, including electoral justice and political repression, we can resolve later, because it will be harder for the government to not listen to the demands of Europe. And if we sign an agreement with the Customs Union, it is a new empire, and the empire is a dictatorship, where certainly no one will be exempt,” said the patriarch.
Believing that convergence with the EU is good rather than evil, representatives of the churches see in European integration one, but significant in their opinion, drawback – the legalization of same-sex relations.
The president of the Ukrainian Bible Society Hryhoriy Komendant said that the text of the Association Agreement contains “direct and specific anti-Christian statements.”
The Secretary of the Synod of Kyivan Patriarchate Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya) said that there is no obligation for Ukraine to pass a law on same-sex marriage; the part of the Association Agreement concerning the rights of the LGBT community is only a recommendation – the decision is at the discretion of the state.
The meeting of leaders of Batkivschyna with representatives of the AUCCRO ended with a discussion about Yulia Tymoshenko. In summary, Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that “the government is playing a political game, wanting to release Yulia Tymoshenko only in words.” He once again stressed that Batkivschyna is willing to compromise, “but instead of a compromise, they are offering us some obscure law, which states that Yulia Tymoshenko should be sent abroad in handcuffs, and return a month later in handcuffs.”
Yatsenyuk touched on the rights of the LGBT community. “I think our opinion is the same – a marriage can only be between a man and a woman,” he said.