RESIDENTS
OF
BELORUSSIAN CITIES COLLECT SIGNATURES AGAINST CONSTRUCTION OF
MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE
CHURCHES
The
collection of
signatures of local residents against the construction of
another building of
the Moscow patriarchate has begun in the city of Orsha in the
republic of
Belarus. Initiators posted their appeal to the Orsha district
executive
committee in late August on the website petitions.by.
It is
planned to
build the church in the region of Zadneprov on Iosif Drozdovich
Street. As
orsha.eu writes, this will now be the fifth church of the Moscow
patriarchate
in this region of the city. And in little Orsha alone there
happen to be 10
churches of the Belorussian Orthodox Church of the Moscow
Patriarchate
(BPTsMP).
The
authors of the
petition write: "The existing Orthodox churches in the city are,
in our
opinion, quite sufficient for believers. Even during feast day
services, not
all Orsha churches are well filled with people. Thus we suggest
that the city
absolutely does not need the new church that it is planned to
build in Orsha.
Recently
signatures
of residents of another Belorussian city, Soligorsk, were
collected against the
construction of another BPTsMP church building. In just four
days, 1,000
signatures were placed on a petition against construction of the
church in a
forest park near the new microdistrict No. 21, EvroRadio notes.
Its authors
maintain that there already is now in this city one parish for
every 20,000
residents, which is the largest proportion in all of Belarus,
and therefore yet
another church, let alone one in a green zone, is not needed.
"In our
city of
100,000, this will now be the ninth liturgical building of the
BPTsMP,"
the local activist Natalia Trofimchuk explains. "Why do we need
so many in
the city? Besides, they are planning to build another in a small
wooded park
where people go to stroll. And they are planning to cut down
this small patch
of green for the sake of a church nobody needs." (tr. by PDS,
posted 29
August 2019)
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