How soon does the UMC MP disappear? What to wait after the adoption of the law on the ban of churches related to the Russian Federation

At a meeting with the Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, President Zelensky stated that he suggested that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine support the Government Bill on the Spiritual Independence of Ukraine . . . And this will be clearly dedicated to the Independence Day of Ukraine.

Since working on this bill has continued until recently (the profile parliamentary committee approved it on Friday on August 16, including a large number of amendments and additions), I will abstain from its evaluation. I think that specialists in this area will be better done. I will only pay attention to some fundamental moments. First, it is obvious that after the adoption of this bill, the UOC-MP will no longer be able to exist in its current form.

But this does not mean that this church itself will disappear at once. In both the normative and procedural terms there will be a certain transition period. And in fact, the main task is not just to adopt this bill, but in the real and effective provision of those transformational processes that are prescribed in this bill. In this context, we need to remember our traditional problem - it is not enough to pass the law, and it is necessary to ensure its implementation.

Unfortunately, very often the letter of the law does not always correlate with the practice of its application.

Secondly, with high probability, there will be a large-scale resistance to the implementation of this law-both protest and legal (appeal against its individual rules and practice of enforcement in the courts, in particular in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the European Court of Human Rights), information and political (conducting information -political campaigns against the ban on the UOC-MP in Ukraine, abroad, in particular in various international organizations), as well as bureaucratic (inhibition and imitation of its implementation).

And you need to prepare for this, planning the appropriate countermeasures. Third, the adoption of this law means that the Ukrainian authorities are not going to trade with Russia the topic of the status of the UOC-MP in the process of future peace talks. But almost certainly Russia will insist that the termination of the war should be the restoration of the Moscow Church in Ukraine. This problem should also be prepared.