"It won't be like before": Something from the chronicles of the expropriation of UOC property

So, the main news of the passing day, which was undeservedly overlooked, was the announcement that the State Property Fund began to terminate contracts with the Kyiv Metropolitan Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Zhytomyr and Rivne regions. It is characteristic that this information, apparently, left «the offices» earlier than planned. In this regard, the institution even sent one of its employees to justify the matter, saying that «we have not told anyone about it yet». What are we talking about and what is the next blow to the UOC prepared by the state.

The scheme, which the government is trying to play out, is outrageously simple. The Kyiv Metropolitanate of the UOC is the founder of the majority of diocesan administrations scattered in the regions. In addition, there are also stavropigial monasteries and parishes, which belong to the KM of the UOC respectively. Speaking in the terminology we are already used to, all of them — 102 legal entities — are recognized as affiliated with the Kyiv Metropolitanate of the UOC, which, in turn, was recognized as affiliated with the ROC. As Victor Yelensky, the head of DESS, noted in one of his interviews, the state will not wait for the court decision, but will already order to seize property from the above-mentioned legal entities.

In this regard, the urgent «inspection» of the UOC churches by the Kyiv State Historical and Architectural Reserve, which was announced recently, and the report of the State Property Fund, to which this publication is dedicated, are links in one chain, at the end of which is the total expropriation of property: architectural monuments, leased structures and land plots. And if churches/monasteries-monuments will be taken away by the State Property Fund. Although the message of the Fund itself does not specify which objects of religious real estate in Zhytomyr and Rivne regions they plan to seize, those who use the property exactly on the rights of contracts with this state institution, know very well that it is about them.

It is also worth noting that in these two regions there are four dioceses of the UOC: Zhytomyr, Ovruch, Rivne and Sarnensk. Most of them have something to gain, because these are historically rich areas, where the number of new churches and buildings is about a third of the total number. Some of the planned, by the way, have already begun to realize in reality in the Ovruch diocese of the UOC. There in court canceled the ownership of the whole monastery.

According to our data, the situation will not be limited to the mentioned regions. Already now similar measures are being prepared to take in Ternopil region, where in the field of vision of the local State Historical and Architectural Reserve — Kremenets female Epiphany Monastery and Pochaev Holy Spirit Monastery. Both monasteries have actually lost all court instances in their disputes with the state. The nuns of the Epiphany Monastery have been packing their belongings for the past few weeks, and the Holy Spirit Monastery in Pochaev has been «decapitated», having forcibly mobilized its vicar Archimandrite Paphnutiy six months ago.

This is the harsh reality for which most monasteries and parishes of the UOC, unfortunately, are unprepared. And, with all due respect to the legal corps of the UOC, their work, undoubtedly important and necessary, is in fact a «sisyphus labor» and does not bring even minimal results. The lawyers of the Church are not to blame. In a situation when «the Constitution is on pause» and the legislation works only for the «friends» of the current government — in our case, the OCU and the UGCC — it cannot be otherwise.

The only thing that is surprising in this case is the carelessness with which the dioceses of the UOC approach this topic. According to our data, only a few from the «firing list» were able to foresee what was happening. For example, in some regions, the monasteries are already ready for cantonment in houses prepared in advance in the hinterland. For everything else, we should accept the fact that it will not be like before. The UOC now resembles the Old Believers at the dawn of its existence, and God only knows how events will develop in the future.