Zadubrivka priest: Due to OCU, our community has become an Orthodox family

Archpriest Leonid Delikatny, rector of the temple in Zadubrivka. Photo: a video screen

Every Sunday in the village of Zadubrivka of the Zastavna district, Chernivtsi region, the police block the road to the Holy Archangel Michael Church, where the faithful of the UOC gather for prayer, reports “Klymenko Time” in their video “How Poroshenko Church takes over temples: real stories from Bukovina”.

We recall that for a year, after the illegal re-registration of the religious community of the UOC in the OCU, the faithful of the canonical Church keep 24-hour guard in the church. All this time, activists of the newly formed church structure have organized provocations in the village.

“They told me: while the Russian Church is here - this is a flag on Putin’s map that Zadubrivka is his,” said Archpriest Leonid Delikatny, rector of the Holy Archangel Michael Church.

The clergyman recalled how “the Zadubrivka Cossacks handed the letter to the Moscow priest”: “When I arrived at the church, they were already standing, waiting for me to give them the keys. I called their boss Leshchuk, asking: ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am a leader.’ I say show me the documents. ‘I haven't got them yet.’ I say when there are papers that you are the leader, then I can talk to you. Otherwise, I’ll give the keys, and there are a lot of antiques, then who will answer?”

Father Leonid noted that now the UOC community has no documents, because “they took everything away – they took the code, they changed the name and leader. It turns out to be a raider seizure".

While the issue of illegal re-registration is being resolved in court, believers have allowed supporters of the OCU to pray in the church territory.

“I’ll tell you what: you come, pray quietly, without provocation. Ok? ‘Ok’,” said the rector. “It turns out that he (the priest of the OCU – Ed.) comes at 11 o’clock, we serve in the morning. We leave into the yard – they begin to insult us. And we have old people, some with children. They shout to them: Muscovites, separatists, so-and-so. Our people stayed in the temple, waiting for them to disperse. They sat until two o’clock.”

At the same time, the clergyman noted that the activists of the OCU in his presence trained supporters on the best way to take over the temple.

"Is this normal? Christian-like? They blocked our exit from the temple, but we began to hold Sunday schools. We started common meals like in the first Christian times. Therefore, thanks to that side, we really have got such an Orthodox family,” the archpriest emphasized.

“In Zadubrivka, as of today, every Sunday morning begins with road blocking. The police allow passing, perhaps, a bread truck. The UOC parishioners pray on the road, while OCU parishioners – in the church. While the courts have been considering claims for years, the situation in the village is aggravating – brothers don’t see eye to eye with each other, name-calling and cursing,” the reporters noted.

As reported earlier, activists have previously threatened to blow up the Holy Archangel Michael Church, in which the UOC community has been standing in prayer around the clock since February 15. The religious conflict in Zadubrivka also affected children – for example, in the summer of 2019, the activists of the newly formed structure didn’t allow the 9th form pupil Kristina Velushchak, a parishioner of the UOC, to come to the school-leaving ceremony.

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