Live on, but without light: priest is turned off electricity in Ugrinov

Gorokhov branch “Volynoblenergo” has sent to priest of the UOC in Ugrinov village Rostislav Sapozhnik a notification letter saying that on August 14, 2017, the communal enterprise is going to break an electricity an agreement with him.

The power engineers refer to the fact that the decision of the Lokachin district court to expel the user from the house, specified in the contract for electricity supply, came into effect. Additionally, the object is the property belongs to the community of the Kyiv Patriarchate.

Father Rostislav is charged with the fact that he did not inform the power engineers about his eviction. At the same time, the judicial decision itself to remove the priest and his wife from their remaining children in the disputed house has not yet been enforced. Moreover, due to the public resonance, the executive case was taken from the district to the regional center, and this notification came to the Sapozhniks simultaneously with a "surprise" from the power engineers.

On August 9, the clergyman visited the administration of Gorokhov branch, but, according to him, they refused to renew the contract with the adult son registered in the house, who the court did not evict. Power engineers refer to the fact that the owner of the house does not need light on this object. At the same time, 19 years ago, the contract for power supply was concluded not with the owner, but with the user of the property.

In addition, it is still unclear on what grounds at the time Gorokhov branch of Volynoblenergo broke the same agreement for electricity supply with the church of the village of Ugrinov. According to one of the court decisions as for this temple, it did not have the user at all: the treaty with the community of the UOC was declared invalid, and the community of the UOC-KP, registered in the village only in November 2014, could not claim this status all the more so.

A similar scandal broke out last spring in the village of Gribovitsa of Ivanichev district, Volyn region, where the Kiev Patriarchate took over the UOC Holy Intercession temple. In the aftermath of the raiders’ invasion into the church at the end of 2015 year, upon receiving the first bill for the gas used by the invaders, the rector of the UOC community in Gribovitsa wrote applications to gas and power engineers with a request to suspend the supply of energy to this facility. The gas was shut off right away, and the light was switched off for some reason only in February 2016, when there was already living a family, who was housed in the old uninhabited hut, connected to the same power line. The blame for this misunderstanding was shift to the priest of the UOC, who had reportedly disconnected the people from electricity with malicious intent.