In Ternopil region right-wing radicals trying to influence court decisions on church property

22 September 2016, the Court of Appeal in the Ternopil region denied the community of the UOC in the village of Bashuky, Kremenets district, the right to dispose of its church. Thus, the previous decision of the Kremenets district court was reversed. Today, the community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is praying in a country house, deprived of registration and all related rights.

The UOC community won the court of first instance, providing the appropriate arguments. However, according to the Commissioner for resolution of sectarian conflicts in the region, Archpriest George Prokopchuk, in the Ternopil region courts are now imposed practice of reviewing won claims of the UOC at the stage of appeal.

The UOC community of Bashuky, Kremenets district, as the parishioners of the other villages of the region, in which the authorities re-registered the statutes of religious communities, will defend the right to possession of church property in the courts until the European Court for Human Rights.

The situation is similar in the village Kolosova, where the Kyiv Patriarchate received a decision of the Lviv Court of Appeal. In this case, the court hearings were constantly attended by the representatives of the "Right Sector". On their pages in social networks, the right-wing organization has repeatedly said it will achieve the transfer of the churches to the Kyiv Patriarchate by "all available means".

St. Archangel Michael’s Church in Bashuky was seized by the Kyiv Patriarchate supporters and raiders from the Right Sector in the summer of 2015. Then, as in vil. Kolosova, Kremenets district, the regional government made changes to the statutes of the community of the UOC, presenting it as a community of the Kyiv Patriarchate.

Read also