Gas cut off and water threatened to be cut off for a UGCC Church in Odesa, even though all bills were paid on time

The information agency MOST-Odessa has informed the chancellor of the Odesa-Crimean exarchate of the UGCC Father Volodymyr Zhdan that gas was cut off and water was threatened to be cut off for a UGCC church in Odesa. According to the priest, regular visits of representatives of city’s public utility began right after Patriarch Lubomyr (Husar) left Odesa. "It seems as if someone gave a command," said Fr. Volodymyr Zhdan.  In his words, workers without any documents on April 30 cut off a gas pipe. For today the church remains without gas. "The church regularly pays all bills for public utilities; I don’t at all why such extreme actions were taken. If they expect to get a bribe from us, they are wrong for we will not give it, because it goes against ours beliefs," underlined the father.  Thus far the UGCC has not been able to obtain a comment from the public limited company Odesagaz. Background information The St. Andrew the First-called Church, located in Odesa on Gymnasiyna St., is a two-story building that was purchased in 2005 with money donated from philanthropists for the spiritual needs of Odesa’s Greek Catholic community.  Since the middle of 1990s the city authority did not grant a land plot to build of church for the community. Today it is the only UGCC church in the city.

www.risu.org.ua/ua/index/all_news/community/land_and_property_problems/35495/