The Cabinet of Ministers adopted a number of decisions that will contribute to the implementation of President Volodymyr Zelenskyi's mandate on the "spiritual independence" of Ukraine.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told about it.

Thus, in compliance with the decision of the National Security Council, the government raised the status of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience.

From now on, this service will be assigned to the central bodies of executive power, which are directly subordinated to the Cabinet of Ministers.

Previously, the work of this body was coordinated by the Cabinet of Ministers through the Ministry of Culture.

According to the Prime Minister, the structural divisions of local state administrations, whose powers include the activities of religious organizations, will become accountable and under the control of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics.

The government also dismissed Olena Bohdan from the post of head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience.

Recently, she made ambiguous statements, which many Ukrainians saw as support for the UOC-MP.

Bohdan called the transition of congregations of believers from the UOC MP to the OCU "the rapture of churches", assured that the UOC MP prays for the victory of Ukraine, calling this denomination "the largest in Ukraine."

The authorities "took up" the UOC MP

Earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine will ensure the spiritual independence of its citizens and instructed the National Security Council to take a number of steps to implement this decision.

On December 2, Zelensky implemented the decision of the National Security Council to ban religious organizations in Ukraine affiliated with centers of influence in Russia.

The UOC MP may also be on this list.

This denomination and its leading priests assure that they have no relation to the Russian Orthodox Church and Patriarch Kirill, who openly supports the war and the killing of Ukrainians.

In May, in the Kiev monastery in Feofania, the UOC MP even gathered for a Council, in which they announced the alleged break with the Russian Orthodox Church.

At the same time, Onuphrius did not officially declare autocephaly.

For half a year, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Ukraine has not published its charter, which President Zelenskyi mentioned in his address.

This document should clearly state that the denomination is not connected with Moscow.

The head of the OCU, Metropolitan Epiphany, explained that the de facto connection of the UOC MP with Moscow remains, and the de jure Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which in its official name is not linked to the Moscow Patriarchate, wants to avoid the law, which is designed to rename it.

At the same time, many clergymen of the UOC MP support Russian aggression, and in the occupied territories they openly cooperate with the enemy.

In particular, the heads of dioceses in Sumy Oblast (Burynska) and Kharkiv Oblast (Izyumska) fled to the Russian Federation after the deoccupation of these regions.

Over the past weeks, the SBU conducted searches in a number of dioceses of the UOC MP throughout Ukraine.

So, searches took place in Vinnytsia Region, Kirovohrad Region, Transcarpathia, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne Region, Poltava Region, Pochaiv Lavra (Ternopil Region), Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

Propaganda literature, Russian money and passports were found there.

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