print this page

UOC-KP Orthodox Hierarch in Khmelnytsk Hopes New Government will Resolve Property Issues

10.02.2005, [19:25] // UOC-KP //

Khmelnytskyi – For more than three years, the Regional Administration for Religious Matters in western Ukrainian Khmelnytskyi has been blocking the transfer of a church in the Medzhybizh National Reserve in the Letychiv district to the community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church–Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC–KP), said Archbishop Antonii (Makhota) of Khmelnytskyi and Kamianetsk-Podilskyi of the UOC–KP. The hierarch hopes that the appointment of a new head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Administration will change the situation with the church. RISU’s Ukrainian-language site posted the news on 8 February 2005.

According to Archbishop Antonii, this behavior from the Regional Administration for Religious Matters can be explained by the fact that the village of Medzhybizh is the native village of Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church–Moscow Patriarchate (UOC–MP). The church in question was officially given to the Roman Catholic community in 1992 by Mr. Huselnykov, the president’s representative in the region. In 2004, in an official letter Bishop Leon Dubrawski, the local Roman Catholic ordinary, gave up the church for the benefit of the Khmelnytskyi eparchy of the UOC–KP.

The fact that the church has not been given to the UOC–KP is, according to Archbishop Antonii, connected with the fact that “Metropolitan Volodymyr Sabodan, using his influence, is trying to prevent a positive resolution of the issue, despite the fact that Moscow Patriarchate faithful have their own church in Medzhybizh.”

Archbishop Antonii informed RISU that the UOC–KP eparchy of Khmelnytskyi has received many reports that the heads of several district administrations have refused to give land for building new churches. “We have such reports from the villages of Yarmolyntsi, Vinkivtsi, Derazhnia, Iziaslavskyi, and Krasylivskyi. Whenever the issue was under discussion in meetings, state officials ridiculed the clergy, saying that there is no, nor can there be, any Kyivan Patriarchate [presence] in districts where the Moscow Patriarchate dominates,” said the archbishop.

The archbishop said that nothing should now get in the way of the administration’s undertaking measures to carry out the decree “On Urgent Measures for Combating the Negative Consequences of Totalitarian Policies of the Former Soviet Union regarding Religion and Restoration of the Violated Rights of Churches and Religious Organizations.” This decree was issued by former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma in March 2002. Archbishop Antonii asks for an end to the era of the Ukrainian government dividing religious organization into “its own” (the UOC–MP) and “outcasts” (the UOC– KP, the Roman and Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches, and others).

The archbishop expressed his hope that the government’s attitude to the needs of UOC-KP faithful will improve with the appointment of Vitalii Oluiko as the new head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Administration.