In yesterday's speech on the recognition of ORDLO, Putin said that Kyiv allegedly "persecutes" parishioners and priests of the Moscow Patriarchate church.
"The current leadership of the country does not respond to requests from Ukrainian citizens to repeal laws that infringe on the rights of believers. Moreover, the Parliament has registered new bills directed against the clergy and millions of parishioners of the Moscow Patriarchate," Putin said.
The speech with Putin's interpretation of Ukraine´s history ended with the signing of a decree recognizing the "DPR" and "LPR".
We add that the activities of the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate are not prohibited in Ukraine. The UOC-MP opposes the adopted law on renaming the church and calls it almost persecution.
As reported, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the draft law on December 20, 2018 № 5309 on renaming Russian-governed churches. A religious organization that has a center in the aggressor country must indicate the full name of the foreign religious organization in the charter. It is precisely this law that the UOC-MP opposes, claiming "harassment and persecution."
The UOC-MP is actually developing successfully in Ukraine. So, according to the message of Information and Educational Department of the UOC-MP, in 2021, the number of parishes of the UOC-MP increased. This church has 12,381 religious communities, which is 7 more than last year (12,374).
The total number of clergymen of the UOC-MP also increased to 12,513 (57 more than in 2020).
In 2021, the UOC-MP has 260 monasteries with 4,630 monks (82 more than last year).
In total, during the reporting period, 5 male monastic monasteries were formed in the Mogilev-Podolsk, Chernivtsi-Bukovina, Lviv, Belotserkovsky and Mukachevo dioceses.
Every time on the official website of the UOC -MP there is news about illumination of new temples.
In general, over the past seven years in the UOC MP there were 466 new parishes and 30 new monasteries.