Boyarka head: We’ll gather all residents to transfer UOC communities to OCU

At a regular meeting of the Boyarka Town Council in the Kyiv region, the head of the town, Oleksandr Zarubin, announced the upcoming mass transfer of all of the city's religious communities from the UOC to the OCU. A video broadcast of the meeting was posted on the Boyarka Town Council Facebook group (discussion of the church issue begins at 1:03:00).

According to Zarubin, he has previously repeatedly proposed to the UOC clergy to move to the OCU but received a negative response, and now it is time to transfer the communities by the efforts of the authorities. According to him, there are six UOC churches in Boyarka and two more – outside the town.

The mayor expressed his belief that it is the right of the territorial communities of villages and towns to transfer the communities to the OCU.

"According to the rules, the community of the village must gather. If we raise the question of any church in Boyarka (UOC - Ed.), the town community is the community of the whole town, not only the historical or the new part of it. For every church (transfer to the UOC – Ed.) the community of the entire town will gather," Zarubin said.

According to him, we must train in the villages first. He said he talked to those who organized the "transfers" in other districts and came to the conclusion that it is easier to do it in the villages: "To approach this issue properly, we must try to do it in smaller communities, prepare properly and then begin the process in the town. That's why the transfers will start with the villages of Tarasovka and Maliutinka.”

Zarubin promised to do everything "to gather as many people as possible, who will stand up for our church, not the Moscow one". He urged the deputies to do their best in organizing the transfers: "Our task – of both the deputies and the mayor, and the headman – is to gather people and bring them. If you support our Ukrainian Church".

At the same time, the Boyarka mayor fears that it will not be easy to do because it will be very difficult to gather supporters of the OCU and the UOC "will defend itself very strongly”.

When asked by MPs why the city council did not decide to ban the UOC, Zarubin said that such decisions should not be taken because it would be "a litmus paper in favour of our opponents that we are doing anti-lawful things against the Church".

As reported, in late April OCU "hierarch" Drabinko announced a "voluntary transfer" of the community of the Church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker in Boyarka to the OCU.

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