Catholics of Sevastopol will be left without a church (PHOTO)
Sevastopol, June 05 (Navigator, Olga Nikolaeva) – The issue of transferring the building of the former city cinema “Druzhba” to the local Catholic community is not relevant today. The purpose of the land plot will not change.
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Tatyana Ulyanova, head of the culture department of the Sevastopol city administration, stated this on air on the STV channel.
“We will not remove this building from the cultural sphere. It is planned to build a children's cinema and a children's cinema and concert hall on the basis of Druzhba - something that our city so lacks. Moreover, according to the law of the Russian Federation, institutions associated with film exhibition cannot be repurposed,” the official said.
The Catholic community of Sevastopol has repeatedly appealed to the city authorities with a request to transfer the building to it and “restorate historical justice.”
The communist and “regional” factions in the city council, as well as pro-Russian public organizations, spoke out against the transfer of the building. In turn, the chairman of the SSGA Vladimir Yatsuba stated that the building should be returned to the Catholic community of the city. According to rumors, President Viktor Yanukovych gave a “recommendation” for such a decision.
Earlier, in 2011, a session of the City Council decided to refuse to transfer the building to Catholics, and it was also proposed to allocate a plot of land for construction.
The Law of Ukraine of 1991 regulated the procedure for the return to religious organizations of religious buildings that previously belonged to them, “state-owned” buildings. But since the Druzhba cinema was a public utility, Catholics were then turned away.
The church building on Ushakov Square was built in 1911 after Catholics applied to Emperor Nicholas II for permission to build. During Soviet times, the building housed the Druzhba children's cinema; in recent years it has been empty.
Catholics in Sevastopol will be left without a church (PHOTO)