Cherkasy hospital evicts UOC from prayer space over refusal to join OCU

A Cherkasy hospital has taken away a prayer space used by the UOC. Photo: Dozor Telegram channel via Pershyi Kozatskyi

The administration of Cherkasy City Hospital No. 3 has decided not to renew its lease agreement with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) community dedicated to the Holy Apostle Luke after its rector refused to join the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), according to the Dozor Telegram channel on Pershyi Kozatskyi.

Hospital administrators explained their decision by claiming that the room was needed for the “proper organization of staff operations.” However, according to the report, during a private conversation, the hospital's chief physician directly proposed that the community's rector, Archimandrite Viktor, transfer to the OCU, promising that “everything would remain as before” if he agreed. The rector rejected the offer.

For 20 years, the Orthodox community led by Archimandrite Viktor had ministered to patients and held services in the hospital. OCU activists had previously attempted to take over the prayer room but were unable to do so because of an existing agreement between the eparchy and the hospital.

A similar incident occurred earlier at Cherkasy City Hospital No. 1, where a prayer room taken from the UOC was handed over to Epifaniy Dumenko's organization. However, OCU supporters never managed to establish a parish there, and the room was eventually closed.

The Dozor Telegram channel suggested that the prayer room at Hospital No. 3 could meet the same fate.

As the UOJ previously reported, an OCU representative described how a UOC church in the Cherkasy region had been “politely seized.”

Read also