Department for External Church Relations
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Church building belonging to the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church seized in the city of Myronivka in the Kiev region.
DECR Communication service, 07.09.2023.
On 6th September during curfew hours supporters of the schismatic ‘Orthodox Church of Ukraine’ seized the church building of Saint Michael belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the city of Myronivka in the Kiev region, reports the Soyuz pravoslavnykh zhurnalistov website with a link to the press-service of the Bela Tsirkva diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
At about four o’clock in the morning well-built men headed by a ‘priest’ of the OCU called Volodymir Petryk broke the lock on gates of the church using an angle grinder and then broke down the door to the church, the refectory and administrative offices.
The police and people from a local community volunteer group denied access to the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who had gathered by the church building, to the territory of the church.
On 11th June OCU supporters had organized a meeting of the volunteer group to facilitate the ‘transfer’ of Saint Michael’s Church to their structure, but the majority of those present were against this. However, the initiators of the gathering, among whom was ‘archpriest’ Volodymir Petryk, ignored the opinion of the majority, and the vote of those who shared his stance was passed off as the ‘decision of the religious community’. On the basis of this ‘decision’ the authorities registered the community of Saint Michael’s as under the OCU.
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