Superior of Pochayiv Monastery Asks President Not to Sign Bill on Electronic Passports

The Superior of the Pochayiv Monastery, Vicar of the Kyiv Metropolitanate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), Metropolitan Volodymyr (Moroz) of Pochaiv, on behalf of the Spiritual Council and brethren of the monastery, addressed Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych with the request not to sign the bill “On Unified State Demographic Register” passed by the Parliament on 2 October.

According to religion.in.ua, the hierarch quoted excerpts from official church decisions selectively in order to prove that the UOC-MP’s position on the bill and the electronic identification numbers is unambiguously negative. The authors of the address asked the president  “as the guarantor of the Constitution and a believer” not to sign the bill, “to protect the rights of people and give them a real opportunity to lead fulfilling civil lives without digital identification and according to their religious beliefs.”

At the same time, upon the adoption of the bill by the Parliament, representatives of the  Kyiv Metropolitanate of UOC-MP, its Primate’s Secretary Protopriest Heorhii Kovalenko and head of the Law Department Volodymyr Volynets reassured the church community that the new law on passports is “political and not religious.”