Heads of Ukrainian Churches Arrive in Brussels for Meetings with EU Officials

On Wednesday, March 6, a delegation of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO) arrived in Brussels to hold high-level meetings with officials of the European Union, the Institute for Religious Freedom reports.

The goal of the trip is to further establish friendly relations of Ukraine with the European community, to present the positive experience of Ukraine in the field of interfaith understanding and cooperation, and to hold discussions on the establishment of a society of high moral principles and religious freedom.

The AUCCRO delegation includes:

Archbishop Grigoris Buniatian, chairman of the AUCCRO, Primate of the diocese of Ukraine of the Armenian Apostolic Church;

Patriarch Filaret (Denysenko), head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate;

Archbishop Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church;

Yaakov Dov Bleich, Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine, president of the Union of Jewish Religious Organizations of Ukraine;

Viacheslav Nesteruk, chairman of the Evangelical Baptist Union of Ukraine;

Mykhailo Panochko, senior bishop of the Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith of Ukraine;

Leonid Padun, senior bishop of the Ukrainian Christian Evangelical Church;

Vasyl Raichynets, senior presbyter Union of Free Churches of Christians of the Evangelical Faith of Ukraine;

Archbishop Petro Malchuk, head of the Commission on Church-State Relations of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine;

Pastor Andrew Hamburg, deputy bishop of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine;

Archdeacon Rostislav Vorobii, the Department for External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)

Sheikh Ahmad Tamim, Chairman of the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Ukraine;

Anatoliy Raichynets, Deputy Secretary General of the Ukrainian Bible Society;

Archbishop Yevstratii (Zoria), secretary of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate;

Hennady Bilorytsky, Legal Adviser of the Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine and the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine;

Anatoliy Kazachok, pastor of the Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith of Ukraine;

Mit. proto-presbyter Oleksa Petriv, head of the Department of External Affairs of the UOC;

Oleksandr Zayets, chairman of the Institute for Religious Freedom, Kyiv.

At the meetings of the heads and representatives of the denominations with officials of the European institutions will also attend the diplomatic staff of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine.

Recall that the delegation of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations planned to visit Brussels in March 2012. However, at that time official meetings with EU officials were not held in connection with the Ukrainian president’s initiative to hold an urgent meeting with the heads of the denominations.