A teacher of geography organizes a storm of Orthodox temple in Mikhalcha

Believers in the village of Mikhalcha closed with themselves the entrance to the church for supporters of the OCU. Photo: Facebook of the press service of Chernovtsy-Bukovina Eparchy

On August 25, 2019, supporters of the OCU in the village of Mikhalcha, Storozhynets district, Chernovtsy region, led by geography teacher Vasily Maskal, undertook an assault on the Holy Assumption temple of the UOC, the press service of Chernovtsy-Bukovina eparchy reports on Facebook.

The eparchy told that in Mikhalcha, believers of the UOC have been protecting their church for 195 days from the encroachments of the OCU supporters. Today, at about 13.30 pm, when part of the parishioners went to rest after the liturgy, "the attackers removed one section of the fence and broke into the territory." However, they failed to enter the temple, since "the believers have closed the entrance to the church with themselves".

Later, as reported in the eparchy, those who had gone home, returned to help the defenders of the church; their friends and priests from other parishes also began to come. After that, a force assault became impossible”. In the end, after 5 hours of confrontation, the conflicting parties "dispersed on opposite sides of the churchyard".

It is noted that “the village chairman who was very active at the beginning (who publicly promised more than once to seize the temple)” after he realized that the power scenario would not succeed, “stepped aside watching what was happening”. Also, the National Police officers were inactive.

At the moment, the religious community has circled the temple and does not allow the desecration of the shrine.

The eparchy shared that “all the past days, geography teacher Vasily Maskal (a new owner of the church) walked around the village houses and stirred up people to come to today's assault. Vasily is known to many fellow villagers for conducting anti-church propaganda and chasing children so that they would not attend the Orthodox Church.”

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that the “cleric” of the OCU, Vitaliy Daneliuk, believes that Chernovtsy region is facing the problem of ethnic hatred, which is inflamed by Romanian-speaking believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

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