Content, not form

The first session of the work team set upon the instruction of president Viktor Yanukovych to improve religious law in Ukraine was held on 13 December. It was only a few weeks after he signed the Bill 10221 which introduces controversial alterations to the Law of Ukraine "On Freedom of Worship and Religious Organizations", despite the calls of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO), human rights campaigners and various representatives of the society to veto it.Reasons of approval. At a conference on State-Church relations in Ukraine held on 11-12 December in Kyiv, the first deputy minister of culture of Ukraine and former head of the State Department on Nationalities and Religions, Yurii Bohutskyi, explained the reasons why president Viktor Yanukovych signed the notorious alterations to the Law on Freedom of Worship and Religious Organizations (LFWRO) and the timing of elaboration of the amendments thereto. As he precised, there were about 38 amendments, which in particular included the ones regarding the religious law. According to Bohutskyi, the president had to sign it despite objections of the Churches because the law concerned not only religious matters. However, he immediately issued an instruction to the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Justice to elaborate necessary changes to the basic law. Bohutskyi assured that a work team would be established in a very short time to develop a new version of the law, and that the state "is interested in the permanent dialogue with the Churches and religious organizations".Objections against the law. The first session of the work team established upon the instruction of president Viktor Yanukovych was held on 13 December, with aim to elaborate the amendments to the LFWRO and to develop its new version. This way Yanukovych responded to the protests of AUCCRO against the approval of the controversial alterations by the Parliament and against the fact that the president signed the bill on 21 November. According to the Institute for Religious Freedom, the representatives of the Churches and religious organizations in Ukraine repeatedly asked president Yanukovych Yanukovych to veto it, reasoning that the alterations are "impossible to be interpreted unambiguously". They also raised an objection that the passed law "considerably complicates the procedure of assumption of the status of a legal person by religious organizations, as it introduces two unmatched registration procedures". The bill also complicates the procedure of obtaining permissions by foreign religious ministers to stay in Ukraine required for issuance of the visa. "We view the development by the Ministry of Justice and adoption of the Bill 10221 by the Supreme Council as steps to destabilize the religious situation in the society and to lower the level of freedom of religion in Ukraine", wrote the representatives of AUCCRO in their earlier official statement. The meeting of 13 December gives a hint of positive development. The first deputy minister of the Ministry of Culture promised to take into account all the requests of the Council of Churches.Voice of the Churches. Secretary of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate, archbishop Yevstratii Zoria, stated that the main objective of AUCCRO is annulment of the existing wording and passing of a new law which would contain the existing provisions regarding the registration of religious organizations. The hierarch emphasized the necessity to improve the cooperation between the Churches and the State. "We met, communicated and presented proposals before the signing of the effective law but the result is completely different from what we expected. It is probably due to lack of interaction between the branches of the power regarding the Church", noted the archbishop. Head of the External Relations Department of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Fr. Oleksa Petriv, affirmed that AUCCRO does not demand that the state should change its conceptual attitude to the Church but seeks to make alterations to a specific law which should be passed with taking into account of the opinion of the representatives of religious organizations. Deputy Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine, Gennadii Bilorytskyi, supported the priest: "None of us is a lawyer. We would like to present the position of the denominations and to hear suggestions from experts and lawyers on how it can be formulated in terms of legislation. We want to be heard by content and not by form". Archbishop Yevstratii also proposed to develop a unified methodological guide on registration of Church organizations to simplify the procedure of their registration. It seems that the new bill will not be submitted for consideration to the Parliament earlier than at its February session, as it is to be agreed upon by all the members of AUCCRO.