Department for External Church Relations
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A church building of the canonical Church is seized in Ivano-Frankovsk region of Ukraine
On 15 December 2019, a group of unidentified individuals broke the doors to the church of St. Demetrius of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the village of Proboinovka, Ivano-Frankovsk region, and sealed them. Website of the Ivano-Frankovsk diocese reports that the intruders who presented themselves as soldiers involved with the anti-terrorist organization, arrived at approximately 03.00 p.m. after the Sunday divine service.
Last March, a meeting of the village inhabitants took place with support of the village council’s chairman. A decision was taken to transfer the community of the canonical Church to the jurisdiction of the Orthodox church in Ukraine (OCU). The rector of the church of St. Demetrius and parishioners who are the true representatives of the religious community were not present at the meeting. Often enough, a meeting of the village inhabitants is identified with a meeting of religious community, but it is not so, and therefore any taken decision carries no legal weight. However, this has not prevented the organizers of the ‘transfer’ to present to the regional state administration the minutes of the meeting and other documents and ask to re-register the community with the change of its jurisdiction of a OCU community. The data were entered into the Unified State Register of Legal Entities with the change of the name of the religious community of the church of St. Demetrius, its constitutive documents and its jurisdiction.
Since then, the OCU representatives with a small number of their supporters came to the church occasionally, conducted their services on the church’s territory and exerted pressure on the believers.
At present the community of the church of St. Demetrius and its rector who have remained faithful to the canonical Church is left completely on the pavement due to assistance of local authorities and is deprived of the right to pray within the walls of their church.
Patriarch
Department Chairman
Sermons
24.01.2021
06.11.2020