UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION WANTS TO START INVESTIGATION OF SEIZURES OF CHURCHES IN UKRAINE
The fraction "Opposition Bloc" in the Ukrainian parliament has initiated the creation of a temporary investigatory commission for studying incidents of seizures of Orthodox church buildings in Ukraine, the head of the fraction, Yury Boiko, stated on Monday.
"There are very many radical manifestations. Tomorrow (Tuesday—ed.) we will initiate in parliament the creation of a temporary investigating commission, since there were incidents, and very many of them, of the seizure of Orthodox church buildings by radical elements. This pertains especially to western Ukraine," Boiko said during a session of the conciliation council of leaders of parliamentary fractions on Monday.
Previously, the UPTsMP has often reported cases of repression of clergy and seizures of Orthodox churches in Ukraine by representatives of the schismatic Kiev patriarchate and armed nationalistic formations, including militants of the extremist Right Sector. The deputy head of the Russian MID, Gennady Gatilov, also told RIA Novosti that priests and believers in the east of Ukraine have been subjected to intimidation and abuse on the part of Ukrainian nationalists and Orthodox churches and monasteries have been destroyed during armed actions unleashed by Kiev.
Thus, late last year there occurred a seizure of two church buildings of the Rovno diocese, into one of which militants of the extremist Right Sector burst. And in December, 10 armed persons in a military truck who identified themselves as troops of the Ukrainian National Guard rushed onto the territory of the Holy Iverian convent of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow patriarchate. Militants locked nuns and a guard in the building of the skete after taking away their keys, passports, and cell phones and shooting a guard dog, and they looted the diocesan residence. They stole valuables, icons, office equipment, kitchen utensils, table service, and a lot more.
Metropolitan of Luhansk and Alchevsk Mitrofan sent to the secretary general of the Council of Europe a letter in which he asked for a response to incidents of attacks on churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow patriarchate.
According to information of the vice-chairman of the Department of External Church Relations of the canonical UPTs, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, almost 30 churches of the UPTsMP have transferred to the Kiev patriarchate as the result of seizures. (tr. by PDS, posted 5 October 2015)
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