zarvanytsia 4

July 27th, 2020 !

Archbishop Klyment... 

Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Crimea... 

has been ordered to demolish an Orthodox chapel in Yevpatoria, and threatened with criminal prosecution if he does not comply within five days.

The Archbishop received the document from the so-called Crimean bailiffs’ service on 23 July. This states that if the church, occupying a merely 30 m², is not removed within this time, criminal proceedings could be brought against the Archbishop under Article 315 of Russia’s criminal code.  

The document itself is dated 15 May 2020, and asserts that the Crimean Diocese of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine must, within a month from when the court ruling comes into force, demolish the church in question.The move to get the church removed came from the Russian occupation authorities in Yevpatoria.  

The Archbishop points out that construction of the church began before 2014 and Russia’s annexation, and that the Church has all the relevant documentation. The Russian occupiers are claiming this is not the case. The original order was issued in November 2019. 

Russia’s persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church began soon after its invasion and annexation. Moscow presumably understood that open repression by the occupation authorities (as opposed to the attacks on churches and their believers by the Russian and pro-Russian armed paramilitaries) could lead to further sanctions.  

It focused therefore on onerous [lastige] and in many cases unacceptable demands that religious communities re-register under Russian legislation, and on depriving the Church of its land and places of worship. 

The Russian occupiers claimed that the land, which, under Ukrainian law, was the property of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, was ‘federal Russian property’ which the Archbishop was illegally occupying.

In just [alleen al in] the first year after annexation, 38 out of 46 parishes ceased to exist. Of 25 priests in 2014, only four remained by the end of 2018. The last five to have left, did so after searches of members of the Ukrainian Cultural Centre and mounting difficulties created for people without Russian citizenship.

[bron]