Last week, the priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate addressed the local “authorities” of the Kumovo village, Razdolne raion, with a request to solve the issue of transferring a temple’s premise of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) into their ownership.
The Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea of the UOC-KP Climent shared this information with the IA “Golos Kryma”.
“During this meeting, the priests of the Moscow Patriarchate asked who owned the premise, in what way worship services were organized and who conducted them. They also wondered based on which laws the church of the Kyiv Patriarchate existed in Kumovo. After receiving the answers, the priests required the head of the local administration to resolve the issue on transferring the church’s premise owned by the Administration of the Crimean diocese of the UOC-KP to the priests of the UOC-MP of the Dzhankoy-Rasdolne diocese,” Kliment said.
The Arbishop emphasized that the church’s building in the Kumovo village was owned by the Administration of the Crimean diocese of the UOC-KP.
“It is not owned by the village community, so the local authorities can not dispose this property and take any decisions regarding it,” Kliment summed up.
He also noted that if the priests of the Moscow Patriarchate came to this church, all responsibility for their actions would lie with the Metropolitan of the UOC-MP Onufry personally.
As a reminder, earlier, the Sevastopol “court” ordered the Crimean diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) to vacate the premises in the Cathedral in Simferopol and pay a fine in the amount of 5 million rubles.
