In Kamyanets Supreme Court sides with UOC community in dispute with Reserve

Metropolitan Theodore with the St Nicholas Church community. Photo: FB page of the temple

On 20 December 2023, the Supreme Court of Ukraine cancelled the decision of the Economic Court of Khmelnytsky region of 29 June 2023 to evict the St. Nicholas community of the UOC in Kamyanets-Podilskyi from the St. Nicholas Church and transfer the church to the local Reserve "Kamyanets". The corresponding document was published by the church community on Facebook.

"Thus, from 20 December 2023, the enforcement of the court decision in case No. 924/318/23 is suspended, as well as the effect of the court decision itself in this case," says the court's statement.

In 1990, the religious community of the UOC concluded a perpetual lease agreement for the St. Nicholas Church, which belongs to the Reserve "Kamyanets". But in February 2023, the Director of the Reserve decided to unilaterally terminate the contract. As a reason he called the decision of the National Security Council of 1 December 2022 and the expertise of the State Ethnopolitics Service of the UOC Statute "on church-canonical links with the Moscow Patriarchate".

Also, the director of the Reserve referred to the illegal decision of the City Council of Kamyanets-Podilskyi of 4 April 2023 to terminate the right to use land plots for UOC communities. The rector of the temple refused to leave the shrine. Therefore, the management of the Reserve filed a lawsuit for forced eviction.

As earlier reported, the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Economic Court, which gave the church of the UOC in Kamyanets-Podilskyi to the Ministry of Culture.

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