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Politician Calls to Return Cave Monastery to Municipal Ownership to Avoid Conflict

07.02.2012, 09:44
After Viktor Yanukovych was elected president, the Kyiv City Council rapidly voted for the transfer of the Kyiv Cave Monastery from municipal to state ownership. Now the Supreme Council considers a draft law on the transfer of the object from the state to private ownership.

After Viktor Yanukovych was elected president, the Kyiv City Council rapidly voted for the transfer of the Kyiv Cave Monastery from municipal to state ownership. Now the Supreme Council considers a draft law on the transfer of the object from the state to private ownership.

A deputy of the Kyiv City Council, head of its Standing Committee on Culture and Tourism, Oleksandr Brygynets, expressed an opinion in his blog that this provokes wide negative social response and indignation of the public; therefore, a decision is to be urgently made on the Kyiv Cave Monastery in order to prevent the conflict in the society.

“The Minister of Culture M. Kulyniak stated that the monastery will not be transferred to private ownership, and I support this position. But let us be frank: the decision of the Supreme Council does not depend on me or the minister. The puppeteers are based on Bankova Street. There is only one way today to prevent the transfer of the monastery to private ownership – to return it to municipal ownership,” stated Brygynets.

The deputy stated that despite the fact that the Kyiv Council voted for the transfer of the Ukrainian shrine to the state ownership, the transfer has actually not been effected. In particular, due to the “disappearance” of more than ten historic monuments from the territory of the Kyiv Cave Monastery.

Therefore, legally it is not difficult to stop the process of the transfer of the object to the state ownership and to leave it in the municipal ownership. But it is necessary to cancel the decision of the Kyiv Council. On the other hand, to enable the full transfer of the shrine to state ownership and later to private ownership (if the Supreme Council passes the respective decision), the Kyiv City Council is to pass its own criminal decision to write off from the list of the monuments of the Kyiv Cave Monastery the mentioned 10 or 12objects, including the tabernacles of St. Antonii and St. Feodosii and others.

“Today there are two candidates to the position of the Kyiv mayor, O. Popov and V. Klychko. As a Kyivan, I would like to hear the official positions of both these candidates on the possible privatization of the monastery which is prepared by the Supreme Council,” said Brygynets.

Brygynets approached both of the candidates with the request to make public their official position in this regard.