The Memorial Day of the victims of the destruction of the Armenian Catholic church in Western Ukraine was marked in different regions of Ukraine Tuesday.
A number of commemoration events took place and liturgies were served on occasion of the 70th anniversary of the tragic events, AnalitikaUA.net reports, citing the press-service of the Union of Armenians of Ukraine (UAU).
Parachurch liturgy took place in St Alexander Cathedral of Kiev in memory of the victims of the destruction.
The Leader of the Ukrainian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Bishop Markos Hovhannisyan, informed that similary liturgies in memory of the victims of the destruction of the Armenian Catholic church in Western Ukraine were also served in the churches of Odessa, Lviv, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, Chernivtsi, Cherkasy and other regions of the country.
As reported earlier, the Ukrainian parliament on Thursday adopted a decision on marking the 70th anniversary of the destruction of the Armenian Catholic church in Western Ukraine on 25 October 2016.
The text of the adopted document noted that a mass destruction of western Catholic churches began in Western Ukraine in 1945. The Armenian Catholic church was one of the first among them. According to the historical sources, 25 October 1946 is considered the final data of the monument’s destruction.
“With the purpose of maintaining the historical memory and confirming the principles of the freedom of religion, rights of ethnic minorities and condemnation of any persecution on religious or ethnic grounds declared by the Ukrainian Constitution, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has decided to mark the 70th anniversary of the destruction of the Armenian Catholic church in Western Ukraine on 25 October 2016,” the decision reads.
