State expropriates another UOC church in Cherkasy region

The Economic Court of Cherkasy Oblast has ruled to expropriate St. Michael’s Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Horodyshche in favor of the state. The party that lodged the claim to the church, which is an architectural monument of local significance, was the Smelyansky District Prosecutor’s Office of the Cherkasy region. This was reported by the regional publication Procherk.

It is reported that the Smila District Prosecutor’s Office filed a petition with the court to transfer St. Michael’s Church of the UOC in the city of Horodyshche, Cherkasy region, to state ownership, since, according to the institution, the local community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church acquired ownership of the said religious building illegally. Ultimately, the court upheld the prosecutor’s claim and ordered the expropriation of St. Michael’s Church in favor of the state.

We recently reported that the head of the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine Mykola Tochytskyi announced the transfer of the Holy Dormition (St. George) Cathedral in Kaniv, which was previously taken away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, to the OCU. The head of the Ministry of Culture called the transfer of the church to the Ukrainian schism “the purification of Ukrainian shrines.”