16:41 23.01.2019

UOC MP not to change its name — locum tenens of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra

1 min read
UOC MP not to change its name — locum tenens of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra

Metropolitan Pavlo (born Lebid) of Vyshhorod and Chornobyl, the locum tenens of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra (monastery), has said the former Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) will not change its name despite a law passed in December 2018.

"[Our name] won't change. There is no reason for it. We are our own Ukrainian church with our own people in our own country," he said in an interview with the Segodnya newspaper published on Wednesday, January 23, in response to a question whether the UOC MP is going to change its name in accordance with the recently enacted law.

He said it is "lawyers who decide how to act" in a metropolis.

As earlier reported, on December 20, 2018, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law that obliges the UOC MP to mention its belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church in its official name in Ukraine.

The law was signed by the president of Ukraine on December 22 and came into effect on December 27.

On January 18, 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine received a motion by 49 MPs demanding that the law be declared as unconstitutional.

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