Ivano-Frankivsk scraps school project planned on demolished UOC church site

The demolition of the UOC’s Transfiguration Church. Photo: Halychyna media outlet “Halka”

Ivano-Frankivsk Mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv said the authorities have decided the fate of the plot at 6 Chornovola Street, where officials earlier demolished the Transfiguration Church of the Ivano-Frankivsk Eparchy of the UOC. Instead of the previously announced school construction, a “memory square” will now be laid out there.

“At Chornovola Street, where there was a church of the Moscow Patriarchate, a decision was made to create a small square there. A memory square. In the near future, we will present the concept to the community so that no one speculates on this topic,” the mayor said.

Earlier, Ivano-Frankivsk region became the first without the UOC, says Martsinkiv.

It should be recalled that in early February 2022, representatives of the enforcement service forcibly evicted the UOC community from the building at 6 Chornovola Street. The official justification was an acute shortage of places in kindergartens. The authorities insisted that the building had to be demolished so that a kindergarten could quickly be built on the site. Later, city officials said that a school would be built on the site of the demolished church.

It has now emerged that there will be no school there either. The authorities have decided to create a square instead.

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