11 Million UAH Allocated from Kyiv Budget for Construction of Cathedral of UOC-MP

The deputies of the Kyiv City Council allocated 11 million UAH for the construction of the Cathedral of the Holy Resurrection of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate. The resolution on the allocation of funds from the city budget was submitted by the head of the Standing Committee on the Budget of the Kyiv City Council, Roman Yaroshenko. According to a deputy of the council Natalia Novak of the Bloc of Klychko, this was done on a request of the secretary of the council, Oles Dovhyi.

"I think that Dovhyi was approached by 'high-ranking' persons as the state is seriously involved in the supervision of the project," explained the deputy in a commentary to www.delo.ua.

Representatives of the UOC-MP confirmed to the correspondent that they approached the Kyiv City Council with a request to allocate budget funds for the construction. "I believe the Kyiv City Council, and we are grateful to the deputies for this decision, but it is too early to say that we have permanent budget financing," stated the press secretary of the head of the UOC, Fr. Heorhii Kovalenko.

At the same time, Natalia Novak expressed her surprise at the fact that the Kyiv City Council provides support to the church at a time of "catastrophic non-fulfilment" of the city budget. "We must pay the tariff difference, we partially stopped financing children's meals at schools and the education of orphans is not paid for," she reminded.

Additional Information:

The Cathedral of the Holy Resurrection of Christ of the UOC is being built in Kyiv, near the Moscow square and the Lybidska metro station.

The complex of 22 thousand square meters is designed for five thousand parishioners and is to include also the metropolitan's residence, numerous offices, a school, an educational center, a hotel for pilgrims, a TV studio, a conference hall designed for one thousand people, a sports complex, and underground parking for 126 cars. Representatives of the UOC previously stated that it would be the tallest cathedral (120 m) in Europe.  

The Kyiv authorities allocated the land plot of four hectares for the construction in 2007. The cornerstone of the cathedral was laid by Metropolitan Volodymyr, President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yanukovych, and Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi, who donated 5 kilograms of gold leaf for the cathedral.