Vilnius, Lithuania, August 9, 2023
Photo: orthodoxy.lt
A group of Lithuanian Deputies of Parliament have registered draft amendments allowing the government to terminate religious organizations for “national security reasons.”
The move comes in response to some religious groups supporting the war in Ukraine, according to Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, head of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, reports lrt.lt.
The Lithuanian Orthodox Church, part of the Moscow Patriarchate, has been accused of supposedly supporting the war, though in fact, the hierarchs and clergy have made repeated public statements and formal declarations to the contrary.
A handful of clerics who were suspended and ultimately defrocked by the Lithuanian Church took to the media to declare that they were punished for their anti-war views. Conversely, the hierarchs of the Lithuanian Church, who are themselves vocally against the war, have explained that the men were censured for various canonical infractions, including schismatic activity and attempts to bring the Patriarchate of Constantinople into Lithuania, which is exactly what they did once they were suspended.
The Patriarchate of Constantinople declared their canonical defrockings null and void, saying the decisions were politically motivated, and now it is setting up its own parallel jurisdiction in the country, with the official support of the government.
Meanwhile, another MP from the task group that registered the new amendments, Rimantė Šalaševičiūtė, says, “There was no specific reference to the Orthodox Christians.”
“It was not identified as a threat to Lithuania’s security coming specifically from the Orthodox Church,” she added.
Under the draft amendments, the Justice Ministry will have the right to ask religious organizations to explain themselves if the government believes they may pose a threat to national security. The Ministry will then have the right to ask the courts to remove the organization from the Register of Legal Entities if it’s recognized as a traditional religious community, and to completely liquidate it otherwise.
The Orthodox Church is among the nine recognized traditional religions of Lithuania.
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