Department for External Church Relations
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Church built by Count Mikhail Vorontsov in Cherkasy region, Ukraine, was seized
DECR Communication Service, 19/11/2025
On 16th November 2025, according to publicly available sources, in Moshny village, Cherkasy region, Ukraine, the Holy Transfiguration Church, which belonged to the local religious community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, was forcibly seized by the OCU activists assisted by a group of raiders. As eyewitnesses report, the attackers were armed with bats and tear gas, and the police did not interfere.
As Raskolamnet.info reports citing Dozor_kozak1 Telegram channel, the perpetrators’ actions were coordinated; the attackers, many of whom hided their faces behind masks and balaclavas, blocked the entrances to the church and put chains on the gates to prevent access to the territory for the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
According to a source, an illegal re-registration of the community might have taken place prior to the seizure. As was reported, the schismatic activists had admitted to the media that the parishioners and the villagers had not supported the transfer. To carry out the seizure, people from Cherkasy were involved, since the local community of the OCU, according to a source, only amounts to several people.
The OCU activists’ intentions to seize the Holy Transfiguration Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Moshny were reported as far back as 2024. Back then, the local authorities organized a “re-registration” of the local religious community without even holding the so-called “territorial meeting” on the church’s “transfer to the OCU.” After that, when the canonical Church’s community was de facto deprived of registration, its parishioners managed to defend their church from perpetrators for over a year, until the schismatics got the armed raiders to take part in the seizure.
As the Union of Orthodox Journalists reports, the Holy Transfiguration Church was built in 1839 by architect Georgio Torricelli and consecrated by Metropolitan Filaret of Kiev on 19th August 1840. It was part of a palace and park ensemble of Count Mikhail Vorontsov.
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