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Churches and Ukraine’s Defense Ministry Discuss Religious Needs of Military

24.03.2006, [19:21] // Church-state relations //

Kyiv – A meeting of representatives of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense (MDU) and the country’s Christian churches took place in a friendly atmosphere at the office of Illia Tyshchenko, head of the Department of Humanitarian Policy of the MDU, on 17 March 2006. Discussed was the project of the MDU “On coordinating the religious needs of the soldiers of Ukraine’s Armed Forces” with the church representatives.

Among those present at the conference was Archbishop Auhustyn (Markevych) of Lviv and Halych, head of the Synodal Commission on Cooperation with the Ministry of Defense and Other Military Bodies in Ukraine of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).

At the end of 2005 Ukraine’s minister of defense initiated a meeting with the leaders of the Christian churches represented in Ukraine. It was noted that “it is high time that the church and the army worked closer for the spiritual development of the military.”

Source:

• http://www.pravoslavye.org.ua/index.php?r_type=news&action=fullinfo&id=10452