Details of seizure of UOC church in Rynhach revealed

Participants in the seizure of the UOC church in the village of Rynhach. Photo: screenshot from Pershyi Kozatskyi video

Supporters of the OCU seized the Holy Ascension church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the village of Rynhach, Chernivtsi Region, with the help of militants from a private security company. Pershyi Kozatskyi reported the details of the raid-style takeover.

The journalists recalled that since 2019 followers of Epifaniy Dumenko had tried four times to storm the shrine – even bringing in hired thugs from Ivano-Frankivsk Region – but each time were forced to retreat. On May 20, 2023, they attacked unexpectedly, when only three people were inside the church: the parish rector, Archpriest Serafim Dumytrovych, a woman who serves as the church warden, and one other parishioner.

“A bus pulled up to the shrine with armed OCU militants, who introduced themselves as a private security company,” Pershyi Kozatskyi reports. “Fr. Serafim and the parishioners locked themselves inside the church. The armed raiders smashed the glass in the door and began tearing off the metal grille. The church warden climbed the bell tower and began ringing the alarm bell. Meanwhile, the raiders had already broken into the shrine and attacked the priest. Fr. Serafim was thrown to the floor and kicked. The activists – or rather, bandits – climbed the bell tower and announced that the church had been seized.”

After paramedics from the ambulance service provided the priest with first aid, the attackers continued to insult him, accusing him of “bringing the Russian world into Ukraine.” In the video, one OCU representative claims the priest was not beaten and that he himself hit his head on the door. The raiders refused to return Fr. Serafim’s smashed phone or even his SIM card, demanding in exchange the keys to the church.

The report notes that among the OCU “priests” who sang a Paschal hymn outside the seized church to the whine of an angle grinder was chaplain Roman Hryshchuk, known for scandalous statements.

“The most interesting thing about the Rynhach situation is that there are practically no activists of the state church in the village. All that exists is the irrepressible hatred of a few of Epifaniy’s functionaries toward Orthodox Christians, which prevents them from stopping,” the journalists emphasized.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that during the seizure of the Holy Ascension church in Rynhach, the raiders smashed the rector’s head and he needed medical treatment.

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