Boyarka authorities spend money on advertising to “decide UOC church's fate”

Advertising billboards in Boyarka. Photo: Pershyi Kozatskyi

Representatives of the Boyarka Territorial Community placed advertising billboards throughout the city inviting people to come on February 25 to a community meeting and decide the fate of St. Michael’s Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Boyarka. This was reported by the Telegram channel “Pershyi Kozatskyi.”

The appeal by the authorities is crowned with the slogan: “The time has come! There is no place for the Moscow Patriarchate in our community.” The mayor of Boyarka, Oleksandr Zarubin, the presumed instigator of this campaign, had already promised in the summer of 2022 to eliminate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the territory of his district. A criminal case has been opened against Zarubin, since local authorities are not vested with the power to initiate so-called “transfers” and have no right to interfere in the activities of religious organizations.

According to Pershyi Kozatskyi, these billboards amount to an admission of preparation for a raider seizure, as the local authorities are inciting hatred against Orthodox residents and encouraging the territorial community to vote in place of the religious community itself.

“We call on all concerned Orthodox Christians to stand up for the parishioners of St. Michael’s Church and come to a joint prayer service in Boyarka on February 25 at 9:00 a.m.,” the channel’s journalists wrote.

As previously reported, the conflict between the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the local authorities began in Boyarka in the summer of 2022. The head of the Boyarka Territorial Community, Oleksandr Zarubin, promised that not a single church under the jurisdiction of the UOC would remain in the city. He facilitated the seizure by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine of the Dormition Church in the village of Tarasivka, and now the situation has spread to other holy sites in the district.

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