The Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church gathered for a meeting at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra Monastery of the Caves May 19. The meeting was presided over by Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kyiv and All Ukraine. The Holy Synod adopted a message to the government, asking that people refusing to accept taxpayer’s identification numbers for religious reasons to be exempted from the procedure. At the same time the Holy Synod addressed another message to the faithful, telling them that an ID number was not the seal of the Antichrist.
In a letter to the President, with copies forwarded to Parliament and Cabinet, the Holy Synod writes in particular: “The Church asks those at the summit of power to show a balanced, reasonable approach to the institution of ID codes which is a very important event to which not all people respond in a similar manner and which may cause society to destabilize and dampen public confidence in those in office. We call on the relevant authorities to work out an alternative, undiscriminating taxation system for the faithful and registration procedures for physical persons and religious organizations, as well as to grant all citizens the right to choose between these taxation systems, and never force people to accept depersonalizing ID codes.”






