Kropyvnytskyi City Council hands over UOC's Protection Church to OCU

Intercession Church of UOC in Kropyvnytskyi. Photo: suspilne.media

On March 25, 2025, during a city council session in Kropyvnytskyi, deputies voted to transfer the Intercession Church of the Kirovohrad Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) into the free use of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) for 25 years, Suspilne reports.

The decision was supported by 27 deputies, while two abstained from voting.

The church was added to the list of municipal property and granted to the OCU without an auction for a term of 25 years, including the adjacent outbuildings and structures. The total area of the transferred property is nearly 450.5 square meters. The church is located in the Kovalivka neighborhood, which is near the city center.

According to city council secretary Oleh Koliuka, the church was taken from the UOC at the request of the military, who wanted to establish a garrison church. The official stated that the property “belongs to the city's municipal ownership.” “We checked – there are no legal claims to this church by any other entity, so the opportunity arose to offer it to the military,” he said.

In addition, the deputies voted to terminate the right of use for the land plot at 14 Yurii Olefirenko Street, previously held by the UOC community of the Intercession Church.

Koliuka added that the city authorities did not consult the UOC religious community, which had restored the church and continued to worship there until now.

Andrii Tolubets, the priest of the Intercession Church of the UOC, told journalists that the religious community includes up to 300 members, but declined to comment on the city council’s decision without an official statement.

OCU chaplain Volodymyr Shevchenko commented that he does not yet know when they will gain access to the church, but added, “If it were up to us, we’d go in right now.”

The original Intercession Church was established in 1787. The wooden church was built with donations from parishioners of both the Cathedral and the future Pokrovska congregation. It was small, which led merchant Petro Shchedryn in 1824 to fund the construction of a new stone church. Construction was completed in 1849. The church was closed in 1932. Services resumed in 1942 but were halted again in the early 1960s. After that, the building was used for various non-religious purposes, including equipment repair, salt storage, and glassware warehousing.

In 1988, the church was returned to Orthodox believers in a state unfit for worship. The faithful restored the sanctuary, and services at the Church of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos resumed in 1989.

As previously reported by the UOJ, on May 26, 2023, Kropyvnytskyi city council deputies voted to lease the UOC's Dormition Church to the OCU for 5 years. On February 27, 2024, the city council also transferred over 3 hectares of land in the city center to the OCU.

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