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Ukraine People’s Movement Objects to Uni-Confessional Parliamentary Chapel

25.01.2008, [17:53] // Church-state relations //

Kyiv – The People’s Movement of Ukraine (PMU) is demanding that the leadership of Parliament and the Supreme Council provide information on who initiated the opening of the St.Volodymyr Chapel and inform the public as to which confession it belongs. The statement was posted on the official PMU web site on 24 January 2008.

PMU members were surprised at the fact that “the construction of a religious establishment on the premises of a state institution was carried out in secret, without due process of parliamentary committees and the leadership of the Supreme Council and that most deputies learned about the opening of the Church from mass media reports.”

«Народний Рух України, відстоюючи принципи християнської моралі, допускає, що в стінах парламенту повинна бути створена молитовна кімната, оскільки як серед народних депутатів, так і працівників Верховної Ради України є віруючі. As the People’s Movement of Ukraine supports the principles of Christian morals, it recognizes that a prayer room should be established within the Parliament because there are believers both among the deputies and the staff of the Supreme Council of Ukraine. At the same time, we are convinced that a prayer room cannot have any confessional affiliation, as there are representatives of different confessions in the parliament. Going by the logic of the initiators of the chapel’s establishment, it would be necessary then to open chapels of all confessions, including a Lenin’s Room for the Communists, in the Supreme Council of Ukraine,” says the statement.

PMU warns that it would not want the opening of a uni-confessional chapel to cause artificial inter-confessional tension in the country.

“We are sure that a prayer room should be used by the believers of all the confessions and help increase the level of spirituality of the believers in the Supreme Council instead of being a factor which can cause misunderstanding and tension among representatives of different confessions,” says the statement signed by its head Borys Tarasiuk

RISU earlier reported that the St. Volodymyr Chapel was opened and dedicated on the premises of the Ukraine Supreme Council on 19 January, 2008 with the participation of the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan).

• http://www.nru.org.ua/important/?id=257