On March 15, 2021, in the Primorsky District Court of the city of Odessa, the trial continued in the case of the lawsuit filed by the lawyer of the Kyiv Patriarchate Neonila Tkachenko against Vasily Yuristy (“bishop” of the OCU) for compensation for damage caused by illegal actions and decisions. This was reported on Tkachenko’s Facebook page.

The plaintiff asked the court to suspend the proceedings due to the presence of other court cases, on the decision of which the consideration of this depends. The court refused to satisfy the request due to the premature presentation of it, however, it recognized the indicated circumstances as important and subject to assessment in the deliberation room after the completion of the stage of examining the evidence.

At the hearing, the Dean of the Odessa-Baltic Diocese of the UOC-KP Vitaliy Senik also provided his explanations at the time of the “council” on December 15, 2018. He informed the court that the UOC-KP community of the Odessa region in 2018 did not express its position on the termination of the existence of the “Kiev Patriarchate” and the election of Epiphany Dumenko as the head of the OCU. It did not carry out such an expression of will and did not send its delegates to the event on December 15, 2018. There were also no decisions on these issues from the parish of the Nativity of Christ of the UOC-KP in the city of Odessa.

Tkachenko stated that the evidence was insufficient and raised the question of the need for the conclusion of Dmytro Stepovyk, a specialist in the canonical law. Taking into account the complexity of the case and taking into account the opinions of the participants in the process, the court agreed with the statements about the need to obtain an opinion from an expert in canonical law, taking into account its specifics and adaptation to the legislation of other countries (Greece and Turkey).

The case was suspended until April 26, 2021.