UOC-MP to Build Churches for Ukrainian Migrant Workers Abroad
Archbishop Symeon of Vinnytsia and Mohyliv-Podilskyi headed a delegation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), which brought to Spain three copies of the facsimile edition of the Peresopnytsia Gospel and parts of the relics of the Holy Martyr Metropolitan Volodymyr (Bohoiavlenskyi) of Kyiv, as part of the international presentation of the Peresopnytsia Gospel.
The copy was passed to the Complutense University in Madrid. The Ukrainian delegation was most expected in the Church of the Birth of Christ in Madrid of the Russian Orthodox Church. The relics of Holy Martyr Volodymyr have become the only Orthodox shrine there.
According to religion.in.ua, there are 100 thousand Ukrainian migrant workers in Spain. Many of them complain that they have no opportunities to attend Orthodox churches and ask to send Ukrainian priests there.
“Migrant workers who did not attend church at home begin to look for parishes in Spain. And the church becomes not only the place of service but also a cultural center uniting Ukrainians abroad. We have met only one Ukrainian priest from the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Fr. Tarasii. It is subordinated to the Constantinople Patriarchate and serves in Malaga. The church has no building and the community has to rent a Catholic cathedral every Sunday from 7:30 to 10 p.m.”
Representatives of the delegation of the UOC-MP spoke to the mayor of Malaga and governor of Murcia. They asked to allocate places for the Orthodox churches or temporary buildings. The Spaniards immediately rejected the latter option.
“They do not accept anything temporary. The want communities to build permanent buildings from the beginning. But, for instance, the cost of building an ordinary Orthodox church in Madrid will be about 2 million euro. Therefore, we have proposed another option: to bring wooden logs from Ukraine and assemble churches in Spain for several weeks. They will look nice on the outside. It will cost a maximum of 100 thousand US dollars.”
