AFU soldier: 70% of my battalion are UOC members
Ivan Valevsky, an AFU soldier. Photo: a video screenshot of the Telegram channel "Dozor on ‘1Kozak’”
A wounded Ukrainian military man, Ivan Valevsky, came to Teofipol, Khmelnytskyi region, to support the community of the Church of St John of Kronstadt, which activists have illegally "transferred" to the OCU against the will of the parishioners. The soldier’s appeal was published on the Telegram channel "Dozor on ‘1Kozak’”.
The military man urged the UOC believers to remain faithful to their faith and not to defect to the OCU, where "the state wants to drive Ukrainians".
"I am a parishioner of the UOC, fighting since 2014. Now I am wounded, I am in the ranks of the AFU. I came to support Fr. Sergiy so that people do not go to the OCU, which I consider a non-canonical and not real Church. <...> What I am fighting for at the moment I don't understand myself. Although I understand that I said I was fighting for Ukraine, for its freedom, and its honour. But to take away the faith is not only ungodly, it is not human," he said.
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