The head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, Viktor Yelensky, said in a commentary for the publication of the Commander-in-Chief that officials have already formed the basis for launching a mechanism for banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. After all, if the “anti-church” bill is adopted, it is the SSEFC that will become the key body in deciding the future fate of the UOC, writes Pravblog.

“When draft law No. 8371 becomes law and our expertise establishes that this or that religious organization is affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation, we will formulate an order for this religious organization. The order will list what this connection consists of, and will be given time to eliminate it. If this is not done, we will go to court. We already have a vision of how to do this in the most efficient way,” Yelensky said.

At the same time, he could not say whether, if the law is adopted, a new examination will be made on the “relationship between the UOC and the ROC” or whether the one that was already done by the civil service will suffice.

“It depends on what kind of claim will be specifically for the last examination. So far I have not seen a single text that would refute the conclusions contained in our examination in essence. That is, there are many complaints that the experts who did it are biased, there are criticisms that it was necessary to examine only the statute, and we investigated more than the statute, but I did not see anyone refute the conclusion of the examination that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is part of the Moscow Patriarchate, but you need to be prepared for the fact that legal procedures are never short,” Yelensky noted.