Authorities want to give OCU Khotyn church raised by UOC believers

The Chernivtsi-Bukovyna Eparchy showed the state in which the St. Alexander Nevsky Church in Khotyn was transferred to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 1990. Now, after the restoration by the UOC believers, the authorities have closed it and want to hand it over to the OCU. The pictures were published on the eparchy's Facebook page.

Since 1944, the St. Alexander Nevsky Church in Khotyn was closed and partially destroyed during World War II. And only in 1990, it was returned to the Orthodox community. The building was in need of immediate repair: the church was without a roof, windows, doors and floors.

“The parishioners, led by the first rector of the church, Archpriest Vasily Savchuk, carried out restoration work at their own expense: they installed a roof and a new floor, made a new iconostasis, painted the church anew, purchased a new altar, a new bell, did restoration work. And all this was done on a spiritual uplift at a time when the fortress was not a state reserve but was on the balance of the city," says the UOC eparchy.

Now a group of radicals from Chernivtsi, in the interests of the OCU, is putting pressure on the director of the State Historical and Architectural Reserve “Khotyn Fortress” in the Chernivtsi region, Elizaveta Buinovska, who has already closed access to the temple located on the territory of the reserve for believers and does not renew the agreement with the UOC community for the use of the church.

The eparchy is sure that in this way it is planned to transfer the St. Alexander Nevsky Church to the OCU. “Now in 2022, a group of nationalists from Chernivtsi, led by schismatic Metropolitan Daniel, is trying to take away the church from the believers. Come, as they like, and take the ready-made. Because, unfortunately, they don’t know how to build and restore churches, they only know how to rob,” says the statement of the Chernivtsi-Bukovyna Eparchy of the UOC.

As reported, the NGO “Miriane” ("Laity") requested the Minister of Culture of Ukraine to help return the St. Alexander Nevsky Church of the UOC in Khotyn by extending the agreement for the use of the church.

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