Residents of Irlyava are asking for protection against the violations of the Uniate Church

February 21, 2017 – Residents of the Uzhgorod oblast village Irlyava wrote an open letter to the head of the local council, with a demand to resolve a dispute with the Greek-Catholic-Uniate community of the village. According to the Union of Orthodox Journalists (UOJ), the residents are sure that the Uniates want to illegally seize the Saint Elijah Church, located on the village cemetery.

The lawyer of the Mukachevsky diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) (UOC-MP) made a decision to draft a territorial map for the localization of the Greek-Catholic-Uniate Church on Taras Shevchenko Street. This document, according to the lawyer, could allow the Greco-Catholic-Uniate community to privatize the church. This is because from a judicial point of view, the Church of Saint Elijah is not registered with the land registry office. And the Uniates, once they receive the map of the locality, could register the church as their property.

82 out of 120 residents of the village signed the petition against the village council’s plan. The residents insisted that the head of the council provides an explanation, but he did not show up to the planned meeting, citing unfavorable weather circumstances. Moreover, residents of the village took a photo of the sky to show that this claim was not true.

The parish members consider that the Saint Elijah Church is needed for the Greek-Catholic-Uniate community as a source of income. Currently, people of all confessions can be buried in the cemetery. However, as some members of the Uniate community have said, anyone who is not “Greek-Catholic-Uniate will have to pay an additional 2000 griven per cemetery place”.

The lawsuit between UOC-MP and the Greek-Catholics is being reviewed in the Superior Agricultural Court of Ukraine. The date of the first session is not yet set.

The UOJ is monitoring the ongoing situation.

Sources

http://pro.church.ua/2017/02/21/zhiteli-sela-irlyava-prosyat-zaxistiti-jix-vid-protipravnix-dij-uniativ/

http://uoj.org.ua/ua/novosti/otnosheniya-konfessij/greko-katoliki-visudili-pravo-sluzhiti-v-khrami-upts-na-zakarpatti-video