Department for External Church Relations
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Archbishop Yevlogiy of Sumy has sent letter to Ukrainian president over threat to seize Sumy Cathedral of the Trinity
On March 29, 2018, Archbishop Yevlogiy of Sumy and Akhtyrka sent a letter to Ukrainian President P. Poroshenko expressing concern over the intentions of the ‘Patriarchate of Kiev’ to initiate a takeover of the Sumy Cathedral of the Trinity, the Sumy diocesan site has reported.
In his appeal, His Eminence Yevlogiy noted that the ‘Patriarchate of Kiev’ official portal carries information that on March 23, 2018, there was a meeting of representatives of this religious organization and a practice-action conference on ‘The Development of Spirituality in Slobodskaya Ukraine: Past and Present’, in which an idea of the collecting of signatures was discussed for a ‘restitution’ of the Trinity Cathedral in Sumy, which belongs to a religious community of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, to the so-called Patriarchate of Kiev.
‘As a matter of fact, the UOC PK leaders, at their official event, became initiators of actions which are to result in the alienation of church property in favour of a different religious organization. The faithful in Sumy see this initiative as a daring provocation on the part of the UOC PK leaders and an attempt to take over the church in a raid’ the archbishop noted, ‘people are resolute in their struggle to defend their shrines and to give a rebuff to church raiders’.
His Eminence appealed to the head of the state ‘to take all the appropriate and sufficient measures to prohibit any actions aimed to alienate the Trinity Cathedral in Sumy’ and to ensure the lawful rights and freedoms of Orthodox people in Sumy in accordance with the Ukrainian law and international commitments to respect human rights.
Similar letters have been sent to the chairman of the Sumy regional administration and the head of the Ukrainian Security Council in Sumy, patriarchia.ru reports with reference to the official site of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Pravoslavnaya zhizn’ portal.
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