Mayor accused by Ivano-Frankovsk eparchy of insulting UOC believers

Ivano-Frankovsk UOC eparchy is upset about an impartial and biased attitude of the city mayor who shapes a negative attitude to the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It is said in the comment of Ivano-Frankovsk eparchy in view of an insulting public speech of mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv.

The comment says that the mayor, “using his position, violates all possible national and international norms, and through mass media stirs up hostility and undermines public relations in a multi-confessional city.”

Reportedly, on 24 January Ruslan Martsinkiv placed a post on his Facebook page that “the court satisfied a request to evict the church from the building at 6 Chernovola St. and to return non-residential property to the city to build a kindergarten on this territory. At last the desire of the city residents to have a kindergarten in the city center, rather than a center of the Kremlin proponents, will be fulfilled.”

“These offensive words of the city community’s chairman are quoted on the site of Ivano-Frankovsk city council and ventilated by local mass media,” the comment goes.

The eparchy refutes the mayor’s information and explains that the ruling of Lvov Commercial Court of Appeal dated 02.11.2016 re №909 / 932/15 is currently challenged in the cassation manner in the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine, where it is being considered now.

“In the event of satisfying the cassation appeal of Ivano-Frankovsk eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine, the decision made on 24 January will be also reconsidered,” the comment details.

Besides, the ruling of the Commercial Court of Ivano-Frankovsk region of 24.01.2017 re №909 / 1043/16 (judge B.V. Dedeliuk) within a time frame provided for by the law will be challenged in the court of appeal – Lvov Commercial Court of Appeal.

“Therefore again and again Ivano-Frankovsk eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, lead by His Eminence Bishop Tikhon, in these festive and joyful days, when Jesus Christ is born pre-eternally for all of us, calls on peace and love and asks the head of the city community, Ruslan Romanovich, not to use an offensive language, which humiliates honor and merit of Orthodox believers,” the comment writes.

As it was reported earlier by the UOJ, believers of Ivano-Frankovsk UOC eparchy wrote an address to city mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv with a request to deprive them of their church.