Kiev, January 21, 2022
Photo: mospat.ru
Supporters of Patriarch Bartholomew’s “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” have failed in their attempts to seize the home of a sickly priest and kick him out onto the streets.
After numerous court cases over the past two years, the matter of the parish house at the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in the village of Pyatigory, Rivne Province, reached the highest judicial instance, the Court of Cassation, which dismissed the complaint of the schismatic community, reports the press service of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Fr. Viktor Dovbenyuk, who is suffering from cancer, first received a notice by mail on August 9, 2019, demanding that he leave the church property that had been violently seized by schismatics on Lazarus Saturday that year.
The court’s decision entered into force from the moment of its adoption. It is final and cannot be appealed. Thus, the court recognized that the parish house belongs to the Orthodox Church, not the schismatics.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church hopes that such decisions will become the basis for the re-registration of a number of communities of the canonical Church. There are currently dozens of such cases in Ukrainian courts.
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