Lawyer: UOC believers file hundreds of applications upon church raids

Believers of the UOC have made hundreds of statements to the police in those regions of Ukraine where churches are being seized with the connivance, and sometimes on the direct orders of local authorities. The lawyer, assistant to the deputy of the Kamyanets-Podilskyi City Council and human rights activist Victoria Kokhanovskaya stated this in a video message on her Facebook page.

According to her, the only thing that slows down the process of transferring cases to the courts is the non-functioning websites of state registers, in particular the State Register of Property Rights to Real Estate.

“We have a few days, because the registries are still closed,” Kokhanovskaya noted and added that when the registries are unblocked, 200-300 applications from UOC churches in each region would be sent to the courts.

She also said she had developed a “template on how to file cases, how to cancel the orders of the heads of regional state administrations” to help religious communities that are faced with the iniquity of the authorities or illegal actions of OCU raiders.

Victoria Kokhanovskaya said that on June 2, 2022, she was taken to the SBU, where she was held for several hours, being interrogated, intimidated, and subjected to physical force and moral pressure. According to the deputy's assistant, her car was searched and information was checked on her phone.

Recall that Kokhanovskaya explained that officials who ban the UOC or hold illegal meetings to transfer the temples of the UOC to the OCU, and citizens who cut down the locks and break the doors of the temples, violate the law.

As the UOJ wrote, on Ascension holiday, radicals stormed the Intercession church of the UOC in Fastiv.

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