UGCC calls on authorities to move brothels out of Lviv

Ruska Street in Lviv. Photo: open sources

Yustyn Boyko, Doctor of Theology and a cleric of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, has urged the authorities of Lviv to move brothels out of the city center. Speaking in an interview with “Velykyi Lviv,” he argued that such establishments are unacceptable near historic sites where Ukrainian statehood was proclaimed in 1941.

Boyko noted that, in his observation, even before the full-scale invasion the number of brothels and venues of dubious reputation had increased in central Lviv. “To this day, it is enough to walk along Ruska Street toward the city center, and from four sides we see various brothels that are clearly operating,” Boyko stated.

He did not explain the source of such detailed knowledge, particularly striking for a clergyman.

According to Fr. Yustyn, he has repeatedly appealed to city officials, asking them to “put things in order” and to “move brothels beyond the city limits,” but was met each time with silence or mockery.

“I recall how, even before the full-scale invasion, there were so many flights a week from Turkey, if you remember. Men came from Turkey alone, seeking women of easy virtue, who flocked here from everywhere – from outside Lviv, from villages and towns across Ukraine. And, to our great sorrow, they treated our girls and women as cheap merchandise, and those women, tragically, sold themselves like sheep,” Boyko lamented.

In his view, the war saved Lviv from “a far wider Babylon that had already begun to form in the city.”

He was particularly outraged that funeral processions for fallen soldiers pass by these establishments every day. “They pass by those brothels which at night – during the day they do not operate – become havens of all kinds of human immorality. I cannot understand how these two things can be combined on this sacred path,” Boyko stressed. He once again appealed to the authorities, noting that if brothels cannot be moved beyond Lviv altogether, they should at least be removed from the city center.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that, according to Boyko, the UOC, by going underground, is attempting to imitate the Greek Catholics.

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