Rozhische, Volyn Province, Ukraine, June 1, 2022
Photo: spzh.news
Many commentators and analysts have speculated that the resolutions of Friday’s Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were motivated by fear and pressure, with hope that the persecution against the Church would stop if it claimed even greater administrative freedom from the Moscow Patriarchate.
It seems unlikely, however, that the hierarchs, clergy, and faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who have faced constant hatred, scorn, and persecution from civil authorities, schismatics, and violent nationalists for years, would suddenly become so naïve, and in fact, attacks against the Church have continued as usual.
Oksana Savchuk, the Parliamentarian Deputy who earlier introduced a bill to ban the entire Ukrainian Church, has described the Council as just an FSB attempt to mask its agents in Ukraine.
And after the latest in a string of recent attempts by activists of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” to seize St. Michael’s Church in the town of Rozhische in the northwestern Volyn Province, police sealed the church on Sunday, May 29, two days after the UOC Council.
On Sunday morning, OCU supporters broke into the church, demanding that it be handed over to the schismatic structure. The men became violent, leaving several people covered in blood, parishioners told the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
Parishioners also spoke about how after nearly a week of constant attacks on the church, their rector Archpriest Peter Ivanichko had suffered a heart attack on May 25.
Rather than protecting parishioners, the provincial police who arrived forced them out of the church and sealed the doors of the church, although local police had already confirmed that the building legally belongs to the canonical UOC parish community.
And the attack in Rozhische is just one among several recent events. Orthodox Life also reports on other recent cases of persecution and planned attacks.
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