On July 8, 2022, at about 4:00 p.m., people in embroidered shirts gathered near the fence of the UOC Nativity Cathedral, who introduced themselves as the community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that “transferred to the OCU”. They stated that they had come to “pray”, but the doors were closed and they could not get into the territory of the cathedral. The incident was reported in the publication “Galka”.

According to journalists, among those present there were people who “represent the Greek Catholic and Orthodox Church of Ukraine and want to pray in this, now Ukrainian church.” In a video from the scene, a man who identified himself as the head of the parish council, Yuri Mushak, stated that the people gathered by him “came to announce the decision of our parish council to transfer to the OCU.” He complained to journalists that the religious community of the cathedral does not recognize his parish council: “We are nobody for them, but we have come to the Service of God.”

Mushak himself, as well as most of his like-minded people, came “to the Service of God” without wearing crosses, but promised to come again.

The community of the cathedral reported that Mushak attended services no more than two or three times a year, and the people he brought as a parish council never appeared in the church, writes the UOJ.

The media also reminds that on June 19, 2022, the community of the cathedral applied to law enforcement agencies with a statement about the commission of a criminal offense – the illegal registration of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration (OVA) of a new version of the charter of the religious community of the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ. Nevertheless, on June 25, the mayor of the city, Ruslan Martsinkiv, announced on his Facebook page that the cathedral community had been re-registered with the OCU and wrote that he welcomed “the community’s decision to transfer from the Moscow Patriarchate to the OCU!” According to him, the community should “get together and come” to the first service, the time of which he will announce later.

On June 26, the community of the cathedral confirmed its loyalty to the UOC. The protocol of the meeting with 496 signatures of the parishioners was sent to the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration (OVA).

“This once again proves that the registration of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration (OVA) of a new edition of the charter of the religious community of the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ is illegal with the use of falsified, forged documents by a yet unknown group of persons with the aim of raider seizure of a religious building,” the community noted.

And on June 3, 2022, the believers of the UOC appealed to Vladimir Zelensky with an appeal to protect them from the arbitrariness of the authorities and asked him to prevent the transfer of their church to the OCU.