The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine published on April 5 the text of a draft resolution on an appeal to the government with a demand to terminate the lease agreement for the complexes of buildings of the Pochaev Holy Dormition Lavra with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. DW reports.

The document was submitted by more than 30 deputies from different factions, among which, in particular, the deputy chairman of the Servant of the People Yevgenia Kravchuk. The authors want the Cabinet of Ministers to inform the Rada about its implementation within three months after the adoption of the resolution.

As the authors of the project note, according to the law of Ukraine “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations”, “religious buildings and property that are state property can be transferred for alternate use to two or more religious communities by mutual agreement. In the absence of such consent, the state body shall determine the procedure for the use of such buildings and property by concluding a separate agreement with each community.

In the explanatory note, the deputies claim that allegedly in open sources there is a letter from the UOC Metropolitan Onufry, in which he personally “forbade his priests to perform divine services in turn.” This, in their opinion, “once again confirms the monopoly of the UOC on the use of religious buildings of the Pochaev Lavra.”

“Today, the Pochaev Assumption Lavra is the source of the “Russian world” on the territory of the stauropegial monastery in Ukraine. It has been under the jurisdiction of the UOC for a long time and has become an outpost of anti-Ukrainian forces and a center of inter-confessional confrontation and discord,” the legislators write in an explanatory note to the resolution. In their opinion, during the full-scale war of Russia against Ukraine, the termination of this lease agreement is “just in time”.

As for which of the confessions, after the termination of the lease agreement, should hold services in the Pochaev Lavra, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) can decide this issue by mutual agreement, the authors of the initiative say. These may be alternate services or the transfer of certain parts of the complex’s structures to both churches.