Kiev Patriarchate loses the case of Ptichya temple again

On 10 May 2017 Rovno district administrative court left the church in Ptichya village, Dubno district, in the ownership of the UOC religious community. As the UOJ correspondent reports, the court denied satisfying the lawsuit to Dubovskaya Alisa Viktorovna – a representative of the local community of Kiev Patriarchate, who demanded in a private manner to cancel the Ordinance of Rovno RSA #173 of 1991 year. By means of this document the property right to the church was returned to the religious community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Ms Dubovskaya appealed to the court last year in September after the KP adherents had passed all the court instances of Ukraine with zero results. It means none of the courts gave the slightest hope to schismatics that the temple in Ptichya village can belong to them.

“The most curious in this situation is that the complainant wanted to cancel the document which was issued when she was just 18 months,” comments human rights defender of Rovno UOC eparchy Yekaterina Ivaniuk. “In fact, eligibility of the Ordinance was established by the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine on 26 January 2016. One may wonder why her lawyer did not pay attention to this fact. Perhaps, it was the latter’s incompetence.”

Hearings on the matter in question have taken place several times over 6 months, each hearing being attended by Filaret followers in the quantity of 30-40 persons. This time in order to support the UOC-KP community, among the KP adherents were senior priest Igor Zagrebelnyi, as well as Ptichya village chairman who was giving brisk comments on the UOC-KP position.

The court session continued for an hour and a half. When the court members had come back from the chambers, they voiced an introductory and a resolutory part of the decision by which the lawsuit, filed by Dubovkaya, was denied in full scope.

“Being a human rights defender of the UOC community in Ptichya village, I paid attention to the fact reasons of Dubovskaya were unfounded, for instance, that she purportedly learnt about a disputable ordinance only in 2016, while the UOC religious community of Ptichya village has always used the worship building and maintained it and this fact was known to all village residents, including the complainant,” tells Yekaterina Ivaniuk. “Besides, the complainant is not subject of public law an individual suit relates to and did not prove in the court any violations of her rights and interests in these legal relations which is a direct ground for denying satisfaction of the stated claims.”

After another failure the KP adherents were leaving the court hall crying out obscenities and threats toward Yekaterina Ivaniuk and the whole judicial system of Ukraine. They addressed her with bountiful “compliments” like “I will show your photo to all lawyers for them to see your face, stinker” or “people like you sell the country”.

The next public hearing on the case of Ptichya church is to be held in Dubno city in a week. Filaret followers pledged to guard at the walls of the court building, to be “on alert” and to arrive there in an even bigger number, as they said at the end. Therefore, the UOC believers in Ptichya village request all concerned to pray for the peaceful and quiet settlement of this issue.