Any Actions of Support or Protest During Visit of Patriarch Kirill Prohibited by Court
The Kyiv Circuit Court prohibited actions of both adherents and opponents of Patriarch Kirill. The prohibition will also apply to the religious procession from St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral to the Monument to Prince Volodymyr that was planned by believers to support the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. RISU’s Ukrainian-language website posted this story on July 25.
The judges supported the claim of the Kyiv City authorities saying that the actions of protest or support “can lead to clashes between representatives of different religious denominations and political trends and create conditions which will disrupt the normal life of the city.”
As it was stated earlier, the Kyiv-based organizations of the Ukrainian People's Party (UNP), the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (CUN), the Ukrainian National Assembly - Ukrainian National Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO), and the All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda are getting ready to meet the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in Kyiv in their own way.
The Kyiv branch of Svoboda announced on Thursday that it will hold pickets to protest the visit of Patriarch Kirill to Ukraine. One picket was to be held outside the Kyiv Cave Monastery on Sunday, July 25, at 4 p.m.; another picket is to be held in front of St. Sophia Cathedral on Monday, July 26, at 9 a.m.; and a third one on Volodymyr’s Hill on Tuesday, July 27, at 9 a.m.
A picket is to be organized on Triokhsviatytelska Street on July 27 to protest Patriarch Kirill's "concept of the Russian World," the statement said. On July 28, representatives of the UNP, CUN, and UNA-UNSO will gather at St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral, which belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate, on July 28 to join a prayer and a sacred procession to celebrate the 1022nd anniversary of the baptism of Kyivan Rus.
According to the press service of Svoboda its representatives intend to conduct a performance and picket against the visit.
On Monday near the Hyatt Regency Hotel, a performance “Glamorous guest performance of the Kremlin security service agent” will be held and on Tuesday they plan to hold a 4-hour picket near the Ukrainian House.
As RISU reported earlier, Dnipropetrovsk authorities prohibited the opponents of Patriarch Kirill to organize any pickets. And on July 24, a special unit of police detained nine members of the regional organization Svoboda who attempted to conduct such an action of protest along the route of Patriarch Kirill.
