Was a UOC сhurch in Ivano-Frankivsk demolished for the sake of a park?

The Transfiguration Church of the UOC in Ivano-Frankivsk before it was demolished by the authorities. Photo: Halka

Until 2022, this was the site of the UOC’s Transfiguration Church. After years of litigation and international scandal – including condemnation of the demolition by the UN Human Rights Committee – the city authorities nevertheless ordered the church torn down. Their official excuse was an allegedly acute shortage of kindergarten places. The public was assured that a new kindergarten would promptly rise on the ruins of the church.

The church was demolished in February 2022. No one, however, rushed to build anything. What remained was a trash-strewn wasteland. Then, in 2024, a new idea suddenly appeared – a school.

“At Chornovola, we have a plot of land that the community won through the courts from the Moscow Patriarchate. And now we want to have a primary school there,” Mayor Martsinkiv declared at the time. “That is why we announced an investment tender for the construction of an educational institution for the community, so that children would have the opportunity to study.”

But another two years have passed, and now it has emerged that no school will be built there either. The latest plan is to turn the site of the demolished church into a “memorial park.”

And all of this demonstrates one thing with perfect clarity: the UOC church was not demolished because the city needed the land. More than four years have gone by, and nothing has been built there. The church was razed for one reason only – so that it would no longer exist. Other actions by the authorities confirm exactly the same point.

A year after the destruction of the Transfiguration Church, the city’s last remaining UOC church – its cathedral – was seized by force. At the time, Martsinkiv openly boasted that Ivano-Frankivsk region had become the first region without the UOC:

“It was the last church in Ivano-Frankivsk region belonging to the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate. We worked toward this event for a long time and today showed a good example for the whole country. …> I wish for our entire independent state to be cleansed of the Moscow Patriarchate.”

Yet another shining exhibit of Ukraine’s “model freedom of religion.” And anyone who objects, of course, is a Kremlin agent.

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