I was told: if you want to live in peace, join OCU, - DECR head on searches

Metropolitan Meletiy (Egorenko). Photo: Foma in Ukraine
Metropolitan Meletiy of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna at the sermon on the day of St. John Chrysostom told the details of the search, which took place in the eparchy on November 25, 2022.
"They came at 7 a.m., unexpectedly and spectacularly. They smashed all the doors in the eparchy as if someone did not want to let them in. They came with machine guns, shouting, shrieking, with glass everywhere, saying: 'Get up, hands up!'. I'm in my pyjamas, I don't even know what to do. They read me the order, warned me and started a search. They took away my phones and computer disks. They did not let my lawyer in, as if it were not a democratic free Ukraine, but some kind of North Korea," says the archbishop.
He also said that the SBU gave him "good advice" on how to avoid further such "visits".
"Privately, one of the kind masked men called me over and said: "If you want such a circus not to continue and you live peacefully in the future – shift to the OCU", after which he turned around and left," Metropolitan Meletiy recalled.
As earlier reported, on 25 November the SBU conducted a search in the Chernivtsi Eparchy.
Read also

Retired SBU general: The UOC is incapable of organizing a protest movement
Former Deputy Head of the SBU, Major General Viktor Yahun, stated that the UOC would not be able to build a protest movement due to the lack of real leaders.

Persecution of UOC is “Russian disinformation”, Dumenko assures US diplomat
Epifaniy discussed the law banning the UOC with Julie Davis.
93-year-old nun: Under the USSR, they called us “American spies”
The oldest abbess of a monastery in Ukraine, Mother Alevtina Siruk, spoke on her name day about her years of imprisonment in a Soviet labor camp for political prisoners.
“Leave my house”: Anglican bishop in gown interrupts concert in London church
Bishop of Fulham Jonathan Baker appeared barefoot on stage, dressed in a bathrobe, calling the choir’s performance a “terrible racket” and demanding they "leave his house.”
Journalist: Authorities only highlighted UOC Primate's heavenly citizenship
An Orthodox journalist believes that stripping His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of his Ukrainian citizenship has only revealed his true belonging.
Former OCA Primate: Orthodoxy in the U.S. is rapidly growing
Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) spoke about the explosive growth of Orthodox missions in the American South and what draws young people to the Orthodox Church.