On October 26, 2023, the Economic Court of Chernihiv Oblast ruled on the case on the lawsuit filed by the Office of the Chernihiv Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church against the National Architectural and Historical Reserve “Chernihiv Ancient”, which concerned the right to use the Eletsky Monastery. The judges call on the Ministry of Culture and others to refrain from publicizing advance and unconfirmed information until the full text of the ruling is published. This is reported by the Information and Education Department of the UOC with reference to the press service of the court.

It is noted that on the day of the decision “the news on the website of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine and the media disseminated information that allegedly the court agreed with the position of the MCIP and the reserve “Chernihiv Ancient”, namely, that the contract on the gratuitous use of the complex of buildings from 2016 is invalid and is not considered renewed, and the Office of Chernihiv diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church since September 15, 2021 is still illegally, without any legal basis uses state property – premises of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“The economic court of Chernihiv region calls on persons who disseminate it to refrain from publicizing advance and unconfirmed information”, – stated in the message.

At the same time, representatives of the Chernihiv Region court note that now only the opening and operative parts of the decision have been made public, without stating the reasons for its adoption. “Such motives and assessment of disputed relations will be set out only in the full text of the decision and at this time no one, except the presiding officer in the case, can not be known to anyone, the participants in the case so far can only guess about them”, – reports the press service of the court.

“Also, the court could not agree with the position of the Ministry of Culture or the Zapovednik, since it did not take into consideration the arguments of these participants during the consideration of the case due to their violation of the deadlines for filing the relevant applications. Moreover, even if the court’s conclusions coincide to a certain extent with the expressed position of these participants in the case, given the above, this would not yet indicate that such a decision was made precisely on the basis of the arguments of these persons. We ask you to refrain from commenting until the court draws up the full text of the decision”, – the Economic Court said.