kyiv, 4 Apr. The plenums of two city councils in western Ukraine voted today to strip the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, canonically subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate, of the right to use municipally owned temples and land.
The first city council to take this step was that of the Khmelnytskyi municipality, with 275,000 inhabitants, whose plenary session unanimously approved withdrawing from the aforementioned church accused of being pro-Russian the right to use the city’s Cathedral of the Holy Intercession, reports the Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska. Pravda.
According to the provisions of the city council, the denomination must also abandon another 11 temples that it administered in the city. These churches will be transferred to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the autocephalous Ukrainian national church founded in 2018 as an alternative to the Russia-linked church.
The decision of the Khmelnytskyi city council was taken after the appearance this Sunday of a video in which a priest from the church accused of being pro-Russian was seen beating a man in military uniform inside a temple.
According to the municipal authorities, the priest attacked the soldier after he asked those present how many people would have to die at the hands of Russia for them to stop going to this church. The hierarchy of this church assures that the man was not a soldier and previously provoked the priests during the mass.
The Kamianets-Podilskyi council followed in the footsteps of the Khmelnytskyi council and today voted to evict the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (as it continues to be known in Ukraine despite its break with Russia after the start of this war) from all municipal properties. EFE
mg/jam/cg
