President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko at a meeting in the Ukrainian House on Nov. 13 assured a group of hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) that the state would protect the right of clergy and laity to free choice of church jurisdiction, presidential spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko has said.
“He [the president of Ukraine] also said that the Ecumenical Patriarch, for his part, guarantees complete canonical protection for supporters of autocephaly in Ukraine,” the presidential press secretary wrote on his Facebook page on Nov. 14.
