Ternopol Regional Council urges MIA to ensure protection of Pochaev Lavra

Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra

The Ternopol Regional Council appealed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine with a request to provide 24-hour security of the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra. The corresponding official statement was adopted at the session of the regional council on November 6, 2018, and posted on the website of the state institution.

In the appeal, the deputies express confidence that the decision to create the Single Ukrainian Orthodox Church will facilitate the interfaith and church-state dialogue in Ukraine and become an important step to ensure the rights, freedoms and religious needs of citizens.

“At the same time, within one step to the creation of the Single Ukrainian Orthodox Church, certain interested structures are trying to aggravate the contradictions between believers of Orthodox denominations, resorting to artificially fueling the religious situation and speculating about the legal identity of the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra,” the text of the document says.

The deputies express concern regarding the appeal of the abbot of the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra, Metropolitan Vladimir Moroz, who openly addressed the parishioners with a call to prepare for the physical defence of the shrine.

“Placing on the Internet and disseminating among citizens the misinformation about the plans to seize the cult object leads to a mass artificially created panic, which in the future may entail illegal activities,” the authors note.

The members of the regional council ask the Ministry of Internal Affairs to organize 24-hour security of the shrine with the help of units of the National Guard of Ukraine in order to “increase the level of security of citizens in the territory of the Pochaev united territorial community and prevent bloodshed and violent seizure of the Pochaev Holy Dormition Lavra.”

In addition, the deputies ask the Prosecutor's Office to assess the illegal, in their opinion, transfer of 6 buildings of the Pochaev Lavra to the UOC.

In 2016, the Ternopol Regional Council requested the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, to take away the Pochaev Lavra from the UOC and return to it the status of a state reserve.

Earlier, the abbot of the Pochaev Monastery  Metropolitan Vladimir has reported threats to the shrine, asked for prayer support, and called for the protection of the monastery, if necessary.

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