Pochaev City Council supports President’s appeal on autocephaly

Pochaev Lavra

At ХХХІ session of Pochaev City Council, the majority of deputies supported the petition of the President of Ukraine to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to grant Tomos on autocephaly, reports Misto.

Voting was initiated by the Svoboda faction.

15 people lobbied the decision, 1 – abstained, 9 – were absent.

"Considering that Ukraine is fighting for its independence, integrity and sovereignty – counters military aggression in the east of the state – we consider it necessary to unite the society not only in matters of history, language, culture, but also in matters of spirituality, i.e. to create the Ukrainian Local Orthodox Church," said in an official document adopted during the session.

At the previous session, however, none of the deputies expressed their support for Petro Poroshenko's church initiatives.

In June of 2017 deputies of Svoboda party disrupted the session of Pochaev city council, which considered an issue of allocating land plots to the Holy Assumption Pochaev Lavra.

The pressure on the deputies of the local city council was also imposed by members of the Right Sector, who on October 12, 2017 disrupted voting on the land issue and threatened the representatives of the authorities with reprisals. Previously, the activists of Ternopol branch of the Right Sector seized the temple in Kolosovaya village. 

On April 17, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko appealed to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople with a petition on granting autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. On April 19, the Verkhovna Rada supported the President’s appeal.

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