The Chair of the Legal Department of the UOC, Archpriest Oleksandr Bakhov, considers it premature to dismiss the criminal proceedings against ex-President Petro Poroshenko for incitement to religious hatred.
Bakhov wrote about this on his Facebook page, according to 'Religiyna Pravda' (Religious Truth).
In particular, the Archpriest of the Moscow Patriarchate states that abuse of power, interference in the internal affairs of religious associations, forgery of documents, fraud on the part of politicians and functionaries should be investigated.
Also, the Orthodox lawyer says that not only Poroshenko and Andriy Yurash were involved in the emergence of the Local Church of Ukraine. According to Bakhov, “an entire criminal group was operating”, and the court should establish the degree of guilt of each person.
Bakhov likely calls the 'criminal group' millions of Orthodox Ukrainians who demanded that the authorities help the Ukrainian Church get recognition and thousands of public activists who participated in the negotiations when they defended the interests of their Orthodox parishes.
Among other things, the clergyman assures the readers that the mentioned case allegedly has nothing to do with the Tomos of the Local Church of Ukraine, since the Tomos, in his opinion, is “a piece of paper that has no legal force”.
As it was previously reported, on June 18, Petro Poroshenko said that a case was instituted against him for "inciting religious hatred" after the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church received the Tomos.
The State Bureau of Investigations confirmed that the case was instituted by the Security Service of Ukraine in 2019.
At the same time, the Bureau stresses that they are not going to question the legitimacy of the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Subsequently, the SBI stated that the case against Poroshenko "over the creation of the OCU" was dismissed.