Department for External Church Relations
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‘OCU’ supporters have seized a church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Dmitrovka village, Kiev Region
DECR Communication Service, 19.07.2022.
On July 16, representatives of the ‘OCU’, with an active support of authorities and police, seized the church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God at the Dmitrovka village, Bucha District, Kiev Region, reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists with reference to the website of the Metropolis of Kiev.
According to the rector of the parish, Archpriest Sergiy Kobylyatskiy, on the basis of the minutes of an assembly of the Dmitrovka territorial community, amendments were made to the state register and the community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was re-registered as an ‘OCU’ community. After that, the ‘OCU’ activists called the Emergency Locksmith Service to force the church door locks and then, in the presence of the chairman of the Dmitrovka Territorial Community, the new ‘rector’ of the
OCU and representatives of the National Police and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. replaced the old locks by new ones. The priest learnt about the ‘reregistration’ after the locks of all the parish facilities were replaced and rushed to the territory of the church.
The ‘OCU’ supporters threatened Father Sergiy and even tried to serve him a call-up paper of the military enlistment office. They declared to the priest that now he had nothing to do with the church, which he had built with his own hands and has been the head of the parish for 27 years.
Archpriest Sergiy Kobylyatskiy filed a legal claim but it was turned down on the grounds of ‘the absence of elements of a crime’.
On June 5, ‘OCU’ raiders already tried to seize the church, after which it was sealed. On the commemoration day of Ss Peter and Paul, Father Sergiy held the celebration in the open. It was the last liturgy to be managed to celebrate by the community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
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