Khmelnitsky, Khmelnitsky Province, Ukraine, May 22, 2025
Photo: spzh.eu
A service that was to be celebrated by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine had to be canceled yesterday due to the provocations of violent anti-Orthodox radicals.
The announcement of the service that was to be led by Met. Onuphry: Photo: news.church.ua His Beatitude was scheduled to be in Khmelnitsky to celebrate the All-Night Vigil at St. Nicholas Cathedral in honor of the 35th anniversary of the revival of the Khmelnitsky Diocese. Today the cathedral was to be consecrated by the primate and a host of hierarchs of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
However, on Tuesday, local deputy Alexander Chernievich announced a rally to prevent Met. Onuphry from serving, calling the Church a “cancerous tumor,” reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists with reference to his Facebook page.
Revealing his ignorance, Chernievich called Met. Onuphry “an actual member of the Russian Orthodox Church Synod,” though he has, in fact, not been a member for three years, since the Local Council in May 2022 at which the UOC withdrew from the Moscow Patriarchate.
Yesterday afternoon, well-known provocateur Evgeny Karas and Khmelnitsky Province Council member Viktor Burlyk published a video with their own call to disrupt the service.
By 3:00 PM, two hours before the Vigil was scheduled to start, local authorities had brought garbage and septic trucks to the cathedral. About 100 protestors were gathered by them, while parishioners also began gathering for the service.
The anti-Orthodox radicals became violent and accused the faithful Ukrainians of working for the “Russian world,” and one of them even poured pig’s blood on the cathedral gates.
Given the scene of violence and hatred created by the schismatic radicals, the Diocese of Khmelnitsky was forced to cancel the service:
For the sake of preserving peace and understanding, avoiding clashes and confrontation between residents of the city of Khmelnitsky, the consecration of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Khmelnitsky with the participation of the primate and episcopate of the UOC, planned for May 22, 2025, will not take place.
We call on everyone for mutual respect and mutual understanding.
His Eminence Metropolitan Viktor of Khmelnitsky went to the cathedral to support the faithful parishioners who had gathered there.
Despite the aggression and calls for death, the hierarch addressed the crowd with love and forgiveness, writes the Union of Orthodox Journalists:
We will never forget this celebration. It will forever remain in our memory and be imprinted on our hearts...
I sincerely thank you for your strength, for your courage, for standing up for each other. Because in our unity is our strength. For patience, for humility, and for love…
Let us love one another, even those who don’t love us. Let us embrace one another, even those who don’t want to embrace us. Let us support one another... because God is love. And this is our main weapon.
The hierarch also called for continued prayer for the people of Ukraine, its soldiers, the Khmelnitsky Province, and all Orthodox Christians, calling for peace to be preserved in their hearts.
The faithful also sang Paschal hymns while the provocateurs shouted threats:
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