On January 23, 2024, the head of the OCU Epifaniy Dumenko held a meeting with the leader of the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber. During the meeting, the European politician expressed concern about the activities of the state and the OCU towards banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, to which Dumenko said that banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a matter of national security. This is reported by the press service of the OCU.

“The country – the aggressor constantly seeks to use the church structure subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate in our state as an element of its influence and the achievement of its criminal goals. Therefore, what Ukraine is doing at the legislative level to prevent this, not at all violates the freedom of religion, and concerns exclusively national security,” – stated in the message.

We shall remind you that earlier we reported that the international human rights organization Forum-18 (Oslo, Norway) analyzed the draft law No. 8371, which the media called “the law on banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church”. The human rights activists noted that the concept of “religious expertise” is legally questionable, and so-called “expert analyses” throughout the post-Soviet region are used to justify human rights violations and restrictions on freedom of religion.