Yurkovtsy, Chernitvsi Province, Ukraine, March 21, 2023
Photo: spzh.news
Violent raiders from the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” attacked an Orthodox church in the western Chernivtsi Province with a crowbar last week, tearing off the fingertip of an Orthodox man who was trying to protect his church.
The attack occurred at the Church of the Great Martyr Demetrios of Thessaloniki in the village of Yurkovtsy on Saturday.
The Diocese and Chernivtsi and Bukovina wrote about the attack in real-time on its Telegram channel, reporting that the schismatic raiders spilled innocent blood, tore down the gate to the church, and used a circular saw to cut down the doors of the church, reports the Information-Education Department of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
spzh.news
The diocesan press service later reported that the raiders tore the finger off of a loyal parishioner, who had to undergo surgery. Several women were also attacked.
“As in Soviet times, it’s women who now bear the great burden of preserving the Orthodox faith!” the diocese notes.
Such aggression, slander, and deception from representatives of the OCU “only strengthens loyalty to canonical Orthodoxy, to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry in the souls of the faithful of our Church,” commented His Eminence Metropolitan Kliment of Nezhin, head of the Information-Education Department.
A meeting of the territorial community was held earlier in October during which an illegal vote was held to force the parish into the schismatic OCU. Meanwhile, the faithful of the parish confirmed their loyalty to the canonical Church.
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