Meeting of Council of Churches with Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Held
On March 16, in the House of Bible of the Ukrainian Bible Society, a meeting of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO) with Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Health Raisa Bohatyriova and Minister of Culture Mykhailo Kulyniak was held.
The AUCCRO was represented at the meeting by the leaders and representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Protestant associations, Jewish community, spiritual boards of Muslims of Ukraine and Crimea.
The meeting was held under the chairmanship of the head of Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), Metropolitan Mefodii.
According to the website of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP), the vice prime minister of Ukraine expressed the readiness of the state to cooperate with Ukrainian churches and religious organizations to settle various spiritual and moral problems of the society. After that, Raisa Bohatyriova suggested that members of the AUCCRO be given the floor.
According to the report, Patriarch Filaret of the UOC-KP spoke about the state of the social morality. "Both our church and all the denominations point to the necessity to strengthen social morality, for the society will be able to develop in the appropriate direction only if there is a strong moral basis in it," said Patriarch Filaret.
The hierarch also expressed concern over the demographic crisis in Ukraine, attempts to legalize same-sex marriages, problems of alcoholism, drug addiction, abortions and called on the participants to combat these sinful phenomena more actively and work for the good of the society by joint efforts of the churches and the state.
