"This is not the UOC for you": Lviv City Hall loses court case on dismantling OCU chapel again

The Western Commercial Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the court of first instance, rejecting the claim of the Lviv City Council to demolish the OCU chapel in the Pid Holoskom neighborhood. Despite many years of attempts by the authorities to have the building dismantled, the court again sided with the parishioners, recognizing the demands of the city hall as unfounded.

According to Leopolis.news, the litigation over the 0.0043-hectare plot at 30 Maloholoskivska Street has been going on for almost five years. The lawsuit for dismantling was filed back in 2021, signed by Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi. The main argument of the defense was that the detailed plan of the neighborhood, which covers more than 50 hectares, does not provide for a place for an Orthodox church at all, which, according to the lawyers, contradicts the Constitution of Ukraine and the law «On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations.»

Oleksiy Degtyarenko, legal advisor to the Lviv Consistory of the OCU, noted a number of serious procedural violations by the city authorities. It turned out that the disputed land plot has no cadastral number, and the acts of inspection of the territory were drawn up with factual errors. In particular, topographic surveys dated May 29 were attached to the acts of May 28, and there were inconsistencies in the signatures of the officials of the Architectural and Planning Bureau. Moreover, the said Municipal Utility Company did not have the necessary certificate to carry out such survey work.

According to the defense, the community received the chapel building as a gift in 2021, and the site itself was historically used by private individuals who transferred the rights to the believers. Although the mayor’s office qualifies the building as a kiosk or «construction trailer,» it is a consecrated religious building where regular services have been held for five years. Representatives of the community hope that after the second defeat in court, the city authorities will stop putting pressure on the Ukrainian church and listen to the needs of dozens of parishioners in the neighborhood.

As reported earlier, the Lviv Regional Council continues to purge the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the region. The regional authorities are concerned that despite the legal liquidation of the UOC religious communities and the seizure of the churches of the canonical Church, believers still gather for prayer in private homes in Lviv and other cities of the region. The Lviv Regional State Administration stated that the Security Service of Ukraine will be involved in the complete liquidation of the UOC «cells».