The Synodal Legal Department of the UOC analyzed a video message from the mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, Ruslan Martsinkiv, who stated that as long as the parishioners of the UOC were in the city’s churches, they would be “evicted” from there. The politician said this when commenting on a provocation organized by his adviser with a group of young people during a meeting of the new ruling bishop of the Ivano-Frankivsk diocese in the Cathedral in honor of the Nativity of Christ in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk on December 11, 2022.

The legal department drew attention to the fact that R. Martsinkiv actually reveals an action plan for the near future, which gives the right to qualify his actions as “attempted to commit criminal offenses.”

Lawyers emphasize that Ruslan Martsinkiv is a person who is an organizer or a member of an organized group who previously organized themselves into a stable association for committing criminal offenses, united by a single plan with the distribution of functions of the group members, aimed at achieving this plan, known to all members of the group (part 3 of the article 28 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).