Cherkasy, Cherkasy Province, Ukraine, August 7, 2023
Photo: news.church.ua
Violent schismatics and civil authorities continue to seize church buildings from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church throughout the country.
One of the most recent attacks was announced in a video message by His Eminence Metropolitan Theodosy of Cherkasy. On Thursday, August 3, supporters of the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” which was created in 2018 by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and the Ukrainian and U.S. governments, violently seized the Meeting of the Lord Church in Cherkasy, in central Ukraine.
Recall that the Cherkasy City Council illegally declared a ban on the UOC in June 2022. Additionally, Met. Theodosy himself is one of the hierarchs who is being especially targeted by the state, with fake charges of “inciting religious enmity” and “justifying Russian aggression,” being brought against him. He is currently being held under round-the-clock house arrest at least until September 21.
As Met. Theodosy recounts, the schismatics “broke into the Meeting of the Lord Church in a frenzied crowd with the support of the security forces and seized it by force, breaking the locks,” reports the Information-Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Moreover, the violent mob showed disdain not only for the sacred church building, but also for their fellow Ukrainians, “throwing the long-term rector with seven children out of the parish house.”
Met. Theodosy also explained that the local civil authorities and schismatics had held a fake “parish meeting” earlier on June 29 and reregistered the parish to the schismatic organization that enjoys the backing of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
The Meeting of the Lord Church was built at the expense of the Cherkasy Diocesan administration of the UOC—a legally existing entity, His Eminence emphasized.
“It was simply stolen from the Cherkasy Diocese through a raider scheme.”
“Brutally, in violation of all imaginable and unimaginable laws, according to the raiding scheme which had been given a trial run in villages, an evil deed was committed in the regional center,” said the Metropolitan. “This was probably the second largest atrocity committed by the persecutors of the Church in our city, after the recent expulsion of the Cherkasy Sisters of Mercy when they were thrown out of the church in the city hospital.”
His Eminence also emphasized that God abandons the churches seized by the schismatics, leaving them “graceless and cold,” while He is “especially close to each of our praying and grieving hearts.”
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