Moscow, February 9, 2015
As reported earlier by Interfax, late in January the Kiev Council excluded the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the list of religious organizations having real estate tax privileges. Mayor of Kiev Vitaly Klichko called the deputies' decision unconstitutional and demanded its repeal.
"It causes anxiety that 78 MPs in Kiev voted for this decision. It shows that authorities are ready to declare a religious organization their political enemy and set a course of discrimination against it and suppress its rights," the priest said in his interview with Ogonyok magazine.
The Church official pointed to numerous incidents of destruction and arson against Orthodox churches, seizure of churches by groups of the self-proclaimed “Kiev Patriarchate,” and threats against UOC priests and believers.
According to Fr. Philip, resolutions like this one passed by the Kiev Council are "only pouring oil on the fire of internal civil confrontation in Ukraine."
"The Representation in Strasbourg also informs the Council of Europe about the facts. I suggest this should be done more intensively, otherwise we might be facing open persecution against the canonical Church in Ukraine similar to the atheistic persecutions of Soviet times," said Fr. Philip.
