Who does a young and active community of the UOC in Lutsk prevent?

The frozen construction of a UOC church has been standing since the spring of 2016 at the boundary of Lutsk and one of the adjacent village councils.

St. Nicholas community has been operating in this district for four years. It has received a piece of land between the urban high-rise buildings on the outskirts for the construction of a new church. In the spring a foundation pit was made and a temporary "trailer" for worship was equipped to hold services on major feasts and social activities, including for children and the youth.

We can only guess who it prevented. However, after the "signal" of well-wishers to the municipal construction inspection, permits on the construction of a church were withdrawn. Now the community is restoring them in courts. The fact that residential blocks of flats and communications are situated on the land that belongs to the Zaborol village council adds to the complexity of the situation.

While lawyers are studying the papers, the opponents of the church construction, as expected, create a corresponding "picture" in the media. A few days ago one of the Volyn TV channels broadcast a report about the details of the judicial proceedings. However, it included only incomprehensible, bordering on slander, comments of several local residents.

It is easy to see firsthand that there cannot be any football field on the disputed building site due to a marked slope. As for the "broken heating pipe", this is absolutely a strange fantasy: according to the priest, the section of the power cable runs through the site, but it has not been damaged.

Believers say that this piece of land used to be a wilderness overgrown with weeds and nettles where dogs were walked until it was granted to the church community. Now it has already been elasticized, the user – the UOC community – has a related bank account, all the building materials are fully prepared and the project is published. But now the community is forced to wait for the final verdict. And the lease on a temporary building, in which the community has prayed for 4 years, came to an end at the end of June. Since then, the congregation dispersed, the parishioners are looking forward to getting a building permit.

Meanwhile opponents of the construction, dreaming about the location for sports activities, could, for example, pay attention to the already built playground, which is situated in the neighboring yard. However, for some reason, no one cares for it, although it still has a good sports base. The parishioners of the UOC community say they have offered not once their help in putting things in order in the ground but no one wants that.

Along with the suspension of the construction of the UOC church temporarily banned was another project – the construction of a high-rise building near the site of the community. However, this construction has been resumed, while the UOC community, for some reason, still cannot get an official permit from the village council and the inspectors. The parishioners have collected signatures in their district in support of the construction, which already makes a few sheets. It should be noted that it is only the signatures of active community members. The opponents, in their turn, voice the sky-high number of residents who are against the church construction – several hundred signatures – but no one has ever seen them. The real "protest" group includes about a half dozen people, and no more. Why to call this bad performance an "interfaith conflict" is difficult to understand.

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