Parties Wish to Gain Support of Priests

In October, in Ukraine, elections to the local self-government bodies will be held. As political parties of the Lviv Region form their election lists, they carry out a "priest hunt" in an effort to include them in their lists. In this way, political parties try to win the votes of the parishioners of the priests.

"The position of our Greek Catholic Church and, perhaps to some extent, of the Autocephalous one as well, is to hide in the bush. I do not understand that. I believe that what is going on now is to some extent the fault of the church as well. The people trust the church, but the church lags behind and watches the process. If we want to build the state, the church is to be active, to go and build a city, region, state," noted the head of the Lviv Regional Organization of the Ukrainian Republican Party Sobor, Stepan Sereda.

Representatives of some parties refuse to participate in the "priest hunt" and stress that the Ukrainian law does not envisage participation of the church in the state creation process.

A similar situation is observed in various regions of Ukraine. In particular, bishops and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate were included in the lists of the Party of the Regions and the All-Ukrainian Association Svoboda in the Odesa and Vinnytsia regions, respectively.