UOC believers are still blocked access to the cross procession in Kiev

Cross Procession of the UOC in 2016

The eparchies of the UOC report that the owners of vehicles are compelled to refuse the believers who want to get to the Cross procession in Kiev. The Information and Educational Department of the UOC writes about this.

Carriers are afraid of threats from government officials and radical nationalists.

In the Nezhin eparchy, representatives of Svoboda threatened local carriers they would burn their buses if they took the believers of the UOC to the procession to Kiev on July 27.

In the Odessa eparchy pilgrims are reported to be unable to find a company that would agree to take them to Kiev.

"We have a thousand people who are ready to go there. We began to turn to transport organizations – but in the first, the second, the third we were told no," said Protopriest Sergiy Lebedev, spokesman for the Odessa eparchy.

As reported by the UOJ, officials massively block the participation of believers in the religious procession of the UOC. In Zaporozhye, Zhitomir, Rovno and other regions, the UOC believers are prevented from attending the procession in the capital, including putting pressure on carriers.

Earlier, commenting on media reports on the obstruction by the authorities of participation of the UOC believers in the procession, lawyers from NGO Public Advocacy qualified such actions as a criminal offense.

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