Metropolitan Volodymyr Gives Blessing to Gather Signatures for Transfer of Pochayiv Monastery to UOC-MP

On February 8, Metropolitan Volodymyr of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate was visited in the hospital by the Superior of the Monastery of the Holy Assumption of Pochayiv, Archbishop Volodymyr of Pochayiv.

On the request of a Spiritual Council of the Pochayiv Monastery, Metropolitan Volodymyr gave his blessing for the archbishop to address all the ruling bishops of the UOC-MP as to the gathering of signatures for the return of the monastery building to the UOC-MP, the website of the UOC-MP reports.

Let us remind the readers that the Supreme Council has registered for consideration Bill 9690 of January 12, 2012, envisaging the return of the religious buildings of the Kyiv Cave Monastery, Pochayiv Monastery of the Holy Assumption and the Monastery of Epiphany of Kremenets to the UOC-MP from which they were confiscated by the Soviet state. The bill provoked a wide response of other religious denominations and various political forces in Ternopil Oblast who have launched a campaign to block the bill. Many of them demand that the Pochayiv Monastery should be returned to the Kremenets Reserve of which it was part before 2003. Signatures are to be gathered against the return of the monastery to the UOC-MP.