In Podgaitsy, priest’s family is threatened to be evicted from church house

Село Подгайцы Шумского района Тернопольской области.

In the village of Podgaitsy in the Shumsk district of the Ternopol region, OCU supporters want to oust Father Vasily from the church house where his family has been living for 14 years. The priest was warned that the intentions of the supporters of the new church structure were very serious.

“After April 15, they want to evict us from the church house, where we are currently holding services. At the moment, we don’t have a temple, which has been taken away from us by force, and now they want us to give them the church house as well so that we won’t hold services for our believers. Legally, they can try to do it through the court, or they can come and throw us out by force,” Father Vasily told a UOJ journalist.

The priest noted that 50-70 people regularly come to church services that he performs in the church house. The rector of the seized church assured that he would stand to the end, and the believers ask all those who are not indifferent for prayer support.

We recall that the decision to “transfer” the church of the village of Podgaitsy to the OCU was made at a meeting of the territorial community on February 12, 2019. The meeting was headed by the former collective farm chairman who never went to church himself. Then, advocates for the transfer ignored Father Vasily’s words that the parish meeting in the village had already taken place on February 9 and the believers testified to their faithfulness to the canonical Church led by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry.

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