On May 5, 2021, the decision of the session of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court on the consideration of case No. 910/10011/19 of the legality of the change by the religious community with. Sutkivtsi of the Khmelnytsky region of their subordination. As expected, the loud statements of the organization of Serhiy Dumenko that for the first time the highest court of Ukraine confirmed the legality of the change in subordination from the UOC to the jurisdiction of the OCU and the influence of this decision on the change of subordination by religious communities in general, are completely untrue and are another manipulation. This conclusion was made by the chairman of the Synodal Legal Department of the UOC, Archpriest Alexander Bakhov, after analyzing the published Decision. This was reported by the Information and Education Department of the UOC.
“Recently, Sergei Dumenko said that the Supreme Court made a decision, which confirmed the right to transfer the religious community of the UOC to the “OCU”. Since the decision was not published, it was difficult for us to comment on its essence, – noted Archpriest Alexander. “Yesterday it appeared in the Unified Register of Court Decisions and we now see that the statement of the supporters of the OCU and Sergei Dumenko is absolutely not true.”
The lawyer explained that “the court refused to satisfy the claim because the plaintiff chose an inappropriate way to protect his rights, and not because of the legality of the re-registration of the religious community of the UOC,” here the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court determines, first of all, procedural issues.
“The decision talks about the issues of jurisdiction, that is, which courts can protect the rights of believers in the event of the seizure of their churches or illegal re-registration. Indeed, in recent years there has been some uncertainty, since after appeals to the court for the protection of their rights, usually the consideration was reduced to deciding which court should consider the case. In this Decision, a certainty was formed that the consideration of such a category of cases belongs to economic jurisdiction. In addition, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court drew attention to the choice of the method of defense and the subject of dispute in such cases.”
According to Archpriest Alexander, “the religious community of the village. Sutkivtsi of Khmelnytsky region intends to continue protecting her rights and once again go to court, taking into account the remarks set forth in this Decision.”
According to the Chairman of the Legal Department of the UOC, “in the “OCU”, in the absence of a full court decision, they decided to manipulate this situation and disseminate information about the legality of the transition to their structure of our parish, and even more – to declare that “the Supreme Court made an important decision on the issues of changing religious communities of their subordination”. But in fact, as we see from the decision made public, this is absolutely not true.”