Court takes 17th-century church in Staryi Pochaiv from UOC community
A commercial court overturned a 2018 registrar’s decision and stripped the UOC’s Ternopil Eparchy of ownership of the 17th-century church.
A commercial court has granted a lawsuit filed by the Kremenets District Prosecutor’s Office and canceled the registration of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Ternopil Eparchy as the owner of the Church of the Intercession, built in 1643 in the village of Staryi Pochaiv. The Ternopil Regional Prosecutor’s Office reported this on Facebook.
In 2018, a state registrar from one of the settlement councils in Kremenets District amended the property register, granting the UOC’s Ternopil Eparchy private ownership of the church and its complex of buildings. Prosecutors, however, claimed that the registrar had unlawfully registered the church and the adjoining buildings as the property of the religious organization.
The Prosecutor’s Office maintains that the Church of the Intercession is an architectural monument of national significance and, under the law, must belong to the state. As a result of the court ruling, the registrar’s decision was annulled, giving state authorities the right to dispose of the complex’s property.
Earlier, the UOJ wrote that four cases involving the UOC in the Ternopil region were being heard in court, including the case concerning the Church of the Intercession in Staryi Pochaiv.
