Kyiv City Council of churches and religious organizations arranged a meeting on February 8th in KSCA building, reports the Institute of Religious Freedom.
"Although the church and the state are legislatively separated, but we implement a general policy relating to the development of Ukraine and the strengthening of spiritual and moral values of our citizens. So, naturally, that Kyiv and its religious leaders have a joint program of cooperation", – said the chairman of the KCSA.
Oleksandr Popov presented the city's special program "Kyiv: the State-Church relations" which was included to the common strategy of the city development until 2025. According to the chairman, a constant dialogue between city authority and denominations contributes to the appearance of joint projects and initiatives that may be the components of this program.
In their turn, representatives of churches and religious organizations raised the current problematic issues of believers concern and made suggestions for the development of the state-denominational relations in Kyiv.
According to the KSCA web site, Oleksandr Popov called on denominations to organize more meetings together and underlined that the city will continue a policy of equality and tolerance for each denomination in the capital.
"Every religious community is a certain number of people living in the city, and we as authority should respect religious beliefs of every citizen of Kyiv. We have 55 religious communities of different denominations, that’s why we certainly should respect interests of all of them", – said the KSCA chairman.
The meeting was attended by the First Deputy Minister of Culture Yuriy Bohutskiy, the chairman of the Standing Committee of Kyiv City Council on Culture and Tourism Oleksandr Brygynets, the Director of Personnel Certification Department of the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine Victor Bondarenko and others.
During the meeting was also presented an updated version of the "Churches of Kyiv" publication.
By IRF
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