Ministry of Culture sets up a commission to inspect Pochaiv Lavra

Thousands of UOC believers pray in Pochaiv Lavra. May 12, 2024 Photo: t.me/peace_youtube_ua

On May 24, 2024, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy issued a directive "On the Establishment of a Commission to Verify the State of Preservation of State Property of the Kremenets-Pochaiv State Historical and Architectural Reserve in Ternopil Oblast." The text of the directive was published on the ministry's website.

The document states that the Acting Minister of Culture Rostyslav Karandeev instructed the commission, from June 3 to June 29, to "check the condition of the immovable property of the reserve", which was transferred to the Pochaiv Lavra of the UOC in December 2003 for free use. It concerns a complex of monastery buildings.

The commission includes Olha Rutkovska, Head of the Department of Coordination of Cultural Heritage Institutions at the Department of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture (Chair of the Commission), Director of the Kremenets-Pochaiv Reserve Vasyl Ilchyshyn and his deputy Ihor Derevinsky, representative of the State Emergency Service of Ternopil Oblast Vitaliy Hmyria, employee of the reserve Olha Derevinska, professor of the Western Ukrainian National University Oksana Dyachok, chief specialist of the property department of the Ministry of Culture Tatyana Romashko, and employee of the Department of Culture of Ternopil Regional State Administration Natalia Sobkovych.

As reported by the UOJ, on November 30, 2023, SBU employees conducted searches at the Pochaiv Lavra. A month later, Serhiy Dumenko announced that his structure would serve in the Pochaiv Lavra just like in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, and its current parishioners would become parishioners of the OCU.

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