A law allowing to ban the Lithuanian Orthodox Church has been submitted to the Lithuanian Parliament
In Lithuania, a group of deputies has registered a bill allowing the cancellation of registration or liquidation of religious organizations for reasons of national security, writes lrt.lt .
The head of the parliamentary Human Rights Committee, Tomas Vytautas Raskevicius, said that this step is a response to the pro-war views of some religious groups caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"We had such discussions in the public space when certain religious communities and in the international context express very interesting views on the war in Ukraine, then if it was recognized that they pose a threat to national security, the court would have the right to revoke such recognition at its discretion," explained the whole essence of the amendment to the law. "On religious communities" one of its initiators is the deputy of the Sejm Thomas-Vytautas Raskevicius.
The publication writes that the Lithuanian Orthodox Church, which is now subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate, was criticized for allegedly supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the heads of the Church rejected this accusation.
Orthodoxy came to Lithuania at the beginning of the XIV century. Around 1317, at the request of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas, the Orthodox Metropolia of Lithuania of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was established. And Grand Duke Mindaugas, who is considered the founder of Lithuanian statehood, according to the chronicles, in 1246 accepted "the Christian faith from the East with many of his boyars." Six years later, in 1252, "for political reasons" — frightened by the Livonian Order, Mindaugas renounced Orthodoxy and converted to Catholicism.
According to the chronicles, in May 1686, Patriarch Dionysius IV of Constantinople agreed to the subordination of the Kiev Metropolia to the Moscow Patriarchate. The ecclesiastical organization of the Orthodox Church of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the territory of Central Europe ceased to exist, and the Lithuanian Metropolia also became part of the Moscow Patriarchate. Since then, Lithuania has been considered the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church, and according to all the canons of world Orthodoxy, parishes of other Orthodox churches, including the Patriarchate of Constantinople, cannot exist on this territory.
Today, the Vilna-Lithuanian Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church unites parishes and monasteries within Lithuania, with the center in Vilnius.
As of the end of 2022, there are 52 parishes and two monasteries in the diocese.