Synod f UOC-Kyivan Patriarchate Addresses President With Request To Prevent Transfer of Kyiv Cave and Pochaiv Monasteries to UOC-MP

The Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP) of May 13 heard a report by Patriarch Filaret on Bill 9690 “On Making Alterations to Certain Laws of Ukraine (regarding transfer of objects of cultural heritage to religious organizations).”  

The Synod decided:

1. To support the letters of Patriarch Filaret of February 7, 2012, to Ukraine’s President. Cabinet of Ministers and Supreme Council as to unacceptability of Bill 9690 “On Making Alterations to Certain Laws of Ukraine (regarding transfer of objects of cultural heritage to religious organizations).” The letters fully express the position of UOC-Kyivan Patriarchate that the national shrines of the Ukrainian nation, particularly the Kyiv Cave and Pochayiv Monasteries, should remain in the ownership of the state.

It is unacceptable to allow structural units of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine to privatize these shrines in its favor.

2. To note that a part of the complex of the Kyiv Cave Monastery, the Pochayiv Monastery and the Monastery of Epiphany in Kremenets have been transferred to the use of the monasteries of the UOC-MP a long time before. This allows them to carry out normally their statutory activity and ensures that the control of the state over the condition of the monuments of spiritual and material culture of the world significance is preserved. This system does not by any means discriminate the faithful of the Moscow Patriarchate unlike the faithful of the Kyiv Patriarchate, who are constantly humiliated for their “affiliation to non-canonical church” in the mentioned monasteries, and is optimal from the viewpoint of the balance of interests of the state and the religious communities and, therefore, should be preserved.

3. To call on Ukraine’s President, Cabinet of Ministers and Supreme Council again to prevent the approval and implementation of Bill 9690 which violates the principle of equality of denominations established by law, increases tension and interdenominational confrontation in the society and can have very negative consequences including obtaining by Russia the right of ownership of Ukrainian national shrines through the Moscow Patriarchate.