REUTERS

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine has opened the proceedings on the proposal of 49 Ukrainian lawmakers regarding the law, which obliges the former Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) to change its official name.

Read alsoLaw on renaming UOC-MP to apply to another four churches

"The constitutional proceedings on the case have been initiated by the definition of a panel of judges; the case is being prepared for consideration at the plenary session of the Grand Chamber of the Constitutional Court," the court said on its official website.

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The lawmakers submitted the relevant appeal to the Constitutional Court on January 18, 2019. MPs from the Opposition Bloc Vadym Novynskyi, Oleksandr Dolzhenkov and Vasyl Nimchenko were authorized to submit the document. In particular, the lawmakers ask to declare unconstitutional the law of Ukraine on making amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations" regarding the name of religious organizations/associations that are incorporated in/are part of a religious organization/association whose head office/administration is located outside Ukraine, in a state that is recognized by law as carrying out military aggression against Ukraine and/or temporarily occupying part of the territory of Ukraine (No. 2662-VIII) dated December 20, 2018.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, on December 20, 2018, passed a bill to rename the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. On December 22, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed the law.