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25.07.2007, [16:41] // Conflict // RISU.ORG.UA

Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine – Court proceedings started by the Roman Catholic community in eastern Ukrainian Dnipropetrovsk against the American company Dugsberry Inc. and the regional administration began on 24 July 2007. The Catholics claim rights to a church building that has been given to Dugsberry Inc.

The Economic Court of the Dnipropetrovsk Region is hearing the case. A third party in the process is the Dnipropetrovsk Intercity Bureau of Technical Inventory.

Vasyl Shurpinov, representing the plaintiff at the session, introduced facts and quoted a great number of documents according to which the church building of St. Joseph on Karl Marx Prospect, 91, should belong to the Roman Catholics. He emphasized that the Higher Arbitrations Courts of Ukraine (HACU) by its decision of 24 December 1998 acknowledged that the religious community of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) of St. Joseph of Dnipropetrovsk is the legal heir of the religious community of the RCC which at its own cost built the church and which existed in the city until 1948. After 1948 the property rights to the church building constantly went from one government structure to another, and in 1998 the building was sold to the company Dugsberry Inc.

Shurpinov referred to the law of Ukraine on freedom of conscience, a presidential decree on the return of church property, and the previously-mentioned decision of the HACU, which declared the contract of sale and purchase invalid. He concluded that subsequent contracts are also invalid.

According to the lawyer of Dugsberry Inc., the firm did not and could not know that the structure at Karl Marx Prospect 91 was a worship building, inasmuch as such information is not given to the buyer, and to that time Ukrainian legislation did not specify the term “worship building.”

No representative of the regional administration was present at the session.

Roman Catholics conducting a prayer vigil near the church building state that a Kamaz truck drove up to them at the time of the session. It stopped only a few centimeters from them. They said this was an attempt at conflict.

The Polish consul in Kharkiv, who was visiting Dnipropetrovsk that day, came to the church in connection with the conflict. He told the parishioners that he had spoken with Mayor Ivan Kulichenko, who assured that at least until 1 August, while the court investigation is going on, no work would be conducted on the church.

As of today, constructions workers have already totally removed the roof of the church and ruined the vault over the altar. The faithful continue a 24-hour vigil near the church.

The next hearing in the case will be on 1 August.

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