MP about agreement on Pochaiv Lavra: “It's lousy”

Nikita Poturaev. Photo: Unian

Servant of the People MP and head of the Rada Committee on Humanitarian Policy Nikita Poturaev expressed pessimism in an interview with LIGA.net about the possibility of breaking the agreement with the Pochaiv Lavra.

“This is a very lousy contract,” Poturaev admitted. “In the case of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the contract could be terminated, but as regards the contract (on the Pochaiv Lavra – Ed.), there are no grounds for its termination at all.”

At the same time, according to him, government lawyers do not give up and "work on the contract", looking for solutions. “We are not setting a deadline – the main thing for us is to get it back. But in such a way that we don’t lose it the next day,” says Poturaev.

He claims that the government, after the expulsion of the UOC, does not plan to transfer the objects of the Lavra to any of the confessions.

“Whether there will be monasteries there is already a secondary question. There may be worships of different churches. The monopolization of such shrines is out of the question,” says Poturaev.

One of the leaders of the Servant of the People faction told the LIGA that “an exclusively political decision is not beneficial for us, because they (the UOC – Ed.) will challenge it in international courts. Therefore, it makes sense for us to wait for the decisions of the Ukrainian courts in order to have all the arguments.”

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that the Humanitarian Committee of the Rada supported the termination of the lease of the Pochaiv Lavra.

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