Uniates come to Ivano-Frankivsk Cathedral as "transferred community" of UOC

On July 8, 2022, at about 4:00 p.m., people in embroidered shirts gathered near the fence of the UOC Nativity Cathedral, introducing themselves as the community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that “transferred to the OCU”. They said they had come to "pray", but the doors were closed, hence they could not enter the territory of the cathedral. The incident was reported by the Galka publication.

According to journalists, among those present there were people who “represent the Greek Catholic and Orthodox Church of Ukraine and want to pray in this, now Ukrainian church.” In a video from the scene, a man who identified himself as the head of the parish council, Yuri Mushak, stated that the people gathered by him "came to announce the decision of our parish council to transfer to the OCU." He complained to journalists that the religious community of the cathedral does not recognize his parish council: "We are nobody for them, but we have come to the Divine Service."

Mushak himself, as well as most of his like-minded people, came “to the Divine Service of God” without wearing crosses, but promised to come again.

The community of the cathedral told the UOJ that Mushak attended services no more than two or three times a year, and the people he’d brought as a parish council never appeared in the church.

Recall that on June 19, 2022, the cathedral community filed a complaint with law enforcement agencies about a criminal offense – illegal registration of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration (Regional Military Administration) of a new version of the statute of the religious community of the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ. Nevertheless, on June 25, the mayor of the city, Ruslan Martsynkiv, announced on his Facebook page that the cathedral community had been re-registered in favor of the OCU and wrote that he welcomed “the community’s decision to transfer from the Moscow Patriarchate to the OCU!” According to him, the community should "get together and come" to the first service, the time of which he will announce later.

On June 26, the community of the cathedral confirmed its loyalty to the UOC. The protocol of the meeting with 496 signatures of the parishioners was sent to the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration (RMA).

“This once again proves that the registration of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration (RMA) of a new edition of the statute of the religious community of the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ is illegal with the use of falsified, forged documents by a yet unknown group of persons with the aim of raider seizure of the religious building,” the community noted.

It will be reminded that on June 3, 2022, the believers of the UOC appealed to Vladimir Zelensky to seek protection from the arbitrariness of the authorities and asked him to prevent the transfer of their church to the OCU.

Read also