Archbishop Sylvester (Stoichev), in an interview with the Dialogue.TUT portal, answered, in particular, the question of whether the state should interfere in church affairs in the current situation.

“I am absolutely convinced that the state can and, in conditions of war, should pay special attention to issues of national security. And, of course, he has every right to check the various communications that are provided for by law: administrative, financial, even communicative. The state has legal and investigative mechanisms that have been worked out over the years for this,” the bishop noted.

“But I am also sure that the duty of the rule of law is to ensure freedom of conscience and freedom of religion for all confessions that exist on its territory, and not to deal with issues of unification of churches, determining the canonicity or non-canonicity of confessions, and the like. The canons of the Orthodox Church are not state laws. They are interpreted as the internal legislation of the Church, to which the state, by and large, does not care,” he added.

The rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary is convinced that state bodies “have the full right to check the activities of religious organizations if there is a suspicion of committing crimes. But, again, you can not transfer the guilt of one particular person to all. This approach of collective guilt is pure authoritarianism.”

“I hope that Ukraine, even during the war, will remain a state of law, where a person’s guilt is determined not by public opinion, but by the court. And in the case of an individual offense and / or crime, the punishment will be borne by the one who did it,” the hierarch noted.

He also expressed the hope that relations between the state and the Church will improve, and this will happen in the right field.

“Even if the state starts de facto considering the OCU as the main state confession, I still believe in Ukraine as a European state with democratic values. And this, among other things, means that the state must ensure freedom of religion for all its citizens. If this does not happen, then the state will cease to be legal and democratic,” the bishop noted.

Finally, Archbishop Sylvester added that it is worth believing in the best. “I believe in the victory of Ukraine. Including on its difficult path to a developed, European, rule of law state,” he said.