UOC community asserts right to use St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kremenets

The religious community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has defended the right to use the St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kremenets, Ternopil region, says a statement from the eparchy's press service.

In response to blatantly false and provocative statements in the media about the right of the UOC to use the St. Nicholas Cathedral of Kremenets, the Ternopil Eparchy noted that since 1832 the cathedral has been an acting Orthodox church, an architectural monument of national importance that is maintained by the efforts and means of the religious community.

The premises of the St. Nicholas Cathedral are in constant public use by the Orthodox community, the successor of which is St. Nicholas Parish, duly registered on September 24, 1991. Ten years later, in 2001, the Kremenets-Pochaivsky State Historical and Architectural Reserve was created. It has the nationalized church property under its operational management. In 2018, an agreement was concluded between the Department for the Enforcement of Administrative Legislation (DIAZ) and the St. Nicholas parish to use the property, which is in state ownership.

The Ternopil Eparchy explains that the DIAZ administration, ignoring a number of existing regulations and the state's international obligations regarding the restitution of church property, has now unilaterally, without the approval of the Ministry of Culture, started the procedure for returning the St Nicholas Cathedral. The parish is not given an opportunity to extend the agreement and the expiry of its term of validity is considered by DIAZ as sufficient legal grounds for terminating the preferential right to use the church, which the religious community obtained with its construction two hundred years ago.

On 8 February 2023, the community applied to the Ministry of Culture for permission to continue using the church. The next day, the DIAZ director, V. Mykulych, issued an order 'On setting up a commission for the return of the property' and on 13 February, despite the parish appeal against the creation of the commission and the absence of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy’s decision as to the further use of the property, the administration of DIAZ held a meeting of the commission to receive the St. Nicholas Cathedral. The rector of the church, Archpriest Vasyl Vozniuk, refused to sign any documents.

Ternopil Eparchy considers that the DIAZ administration "blatantly violates the right of use of the cathedral" of the St. Nicholas parish and reminds that "only the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, in accordance with the tasks assigned to it, performs functions of the management of state property falling within its authority”.

"Until the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy resolves the issue, we ask everyone who might be concerned not to take any action to use the monument of architecture of national importance – St. Nicholas’s Cathedral in Kremenets," calls the Ternopil Eparchy.

The eparchy asks all the faithful believers of the UOC to pray that the St. Nicholas Cathedral will always remain an Orthodox shrine and that prayers will be offered in it for the salvation of God's people and peace in Ukraine.

As reported, the Ternopil Regional Council demands that Pochaiv Lavra be returned to state property.