Rusaniv priest recounts how authorities joined UOC community to the OCU

Residents of Rusaniv voted for the transfer of the temple to the OCU. Photo: Facebook 'Trybuna - Brovary'

On December 25, 2022, the authorities of the village of Rusaniv in the Brovary district of the Kyiv region organized a meeting of local residents, where the majority voted to transfer the Nicholas Church of the UOC to the jurisdiction of the OCU. This was reported to the UOJ by the church’s rector, Archpriest Gregory Siruk.

The initiators of the "transition to the OCU" meeting were the village elder, Yuri Kostyra, and the deputy of the Velykodymerka OTG, Alexander Borsuk.

"Priests" of the OCU also attended the meeting, one of whom was "hieromonk" Ioan (Bondarev), who had been involved in a sex scandal, and the other was "archimandrite" Ioan (Dyachenko) from the village of Bobryk.

Despite the fact that the OCU already has its own church, St. Andrew’s in the village of Pershotravneve (part of the Rusaniv OTG), it remains empty. Even supporters of Dumenko do not attend it because the rector was a polygamist known to all the local residents for his unworthy behavior. The "priest" registered another parish in Rusaniv in his name, but this parish has neither a community nor a church.

For this reason, the OCU supporters and the authorities of Rusaniv decided to hold a meeting to supposedly transfer the Nicholas community from the UOC to the Pereiaslav-Vyshnev eparchy of the OCU, but in reality, to seize the church.

The Rusaniv community of the UOC in honor of St. Nicholas held its own meeting back on October 9, 2022, where 65 parishioners voted to remain within the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The meeting protocols with signatures were handed over to Bishop Anthony.

This did not prevent the "priests" of the OCU from claiming that they had documents for the Nicholas Church and that they were "operating within the legal framework".

"This is simply a lie; I have all the documents for the church," said Father Gregory. He also explained how he tried to tell the residents who came to the meeting that their actions were illegal and that only parishioners of the church could decide to change the denomination. However, the attendees refused to listen to him. "None of the OCU activists attended our church, maybe a few people occasionally visited. These people have nothing to do with spiritual life," added the rector.

A few residents of Rusaniv, who once participated in the construction of the Nicholas Church, actively insisted on transferring the community to the OCU. They believe they have rights to the building, but they did not attend the church either. "The doors of our church were always open – come, pray, we did not turn anyone away," said Father Gregory.

As the UOJ reported, Drabinko appointed a cleric involved in a gay scandal in a transferred church.

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