Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych has reviewed previous views on church-state relations and has returned to the policy pursued by his predecessors. This opinion was expressed by experts.
“After his inauguration in 2010, Yanukovych made an attempt to review the established system of church-state relations in Ukraine, primarily, the regulation about the equality of churches before the law,” noted Viktor Yelenskyi.
According to the expert, Yanukovych pursued this policy in a more or less consistent way as he ignored requests of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations to meet but “repeatedly met with the primate of the ROC.”
“There was a wave of pressure put on the country’s believers who were made to transfer from the Kyivan to Moscow Patriarchate. However, in the end, the policy failed to succeed,” said Yelenskyi.
Viktor Yelenskyi noted that from the beginning of the last year, Yanukovych reviewed his views on the system of church-state relations in Ukraine.
“In April 2011, the president met with representatives of the AUCCRO and promised that the churches will be treated equally. In his annual address to the Parliament, he declared the regulations of the policy on religious organizations which he actually disrespected.”
According to the expert, the attempts of Yanukovych “to review the system of church-state relations, which were established during the period of twenty years, continue but meet resistance of the church organizations.”
A Russian political studies expert Andrii Okara said in a commentary to religion.ng.ru that the policy of Yanukovych with respect to the Ukrainian Churches is ambiguous.
“People who can be considered the Ukrainian authorities are mostly irreligious and far from the real problems of the church. On the whole, church issues are viewed by the Ukrainian authorities as political issues,” said the expert.
According to Okara, there are certain tendencies and groups of influence. “The authorities are trying to show more support to the UOC-MP but the UOC-MP is not homogeneous as it includes different groups of influence a part of which is oriented directly toward Moscow and Patriarch Kirill and the other part is composed of adherents of autonomist tendencies.”
The Russian expert stressed that the policy of Yanukovych was oriented toward supporting “pro-Moscow and pro-Kirill tendencies” but now “this policy has been corrected.”
“And now one can say that the regime of Yanukovych supports those people in the UOC-MP who are adherents of the autonomist tendencies but the interests of the political figures are harmed by the role of agents of influence of Patriarch Kirill.”
Okara noted that the state still encourages the UOC-MP to obtain the property which was for decades in the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture. He also said that “under Yushchenko, there was a balance between various denominations as far as the broadcast of church festivals is concerned. Now this balance is shifted towards UOC-MP,” said Okara.