OCU activist wants to cut off light and heat for UOC priest in Rivne region

OCU activist from Nova Moschanytsia Leonid Kutsel. Photo: UOJ

In the village of Nova Moschanytsia, Rivne region, an OCU activist writes complaints to Rivneoblenergo (Rivne power distribution company – Trans.) and Rivnegaz (Rivne gas company – Trans.) demanding to turn off the light and heat in the priest's house of the UOC. This was reported by the UOJ correspondent.

Last week, Archpriest Igor Gnatishin, rector of the Nativity of the Theotokos parish of the UOC, received a call from two institutions at once to warn of complaints from a resident of Novaya Moshchanitsa Leonid Kutsel. In them, the activist demands to cut off electricity network and heat supply in the house, in which the family of the UOC clergyman lives.

“Every time, as we were told, he indicates in his complaints that the house does not belong to us,” the priest's wife Natalya Gnatishina told the UOJ. “We have won the courts three times: Zdolbuniv and Rivne courts forbade to evict the family from their house, while the Kyiv court refused to consider the case at all. The house is ours. How many more instances do we need to go through to stop this disgrace?"

But Kutsel, a former paramedic and now an ardent supporter of the OCU, is not stopped by either Ukrainian legislation or the judicial system. According to the believers of the UOC, several criminal cases have already been initiated against him for inciting sectarian hatred and participation in the violent seizure of the temple.

“At first, he threatened to run the priest through his guts – this threat was recorded on the video. Then he decided to bring the priest to the madhouse, coming every night to the house and intimidating him. Now he resorted to blackmailing Rivnegaz and Rivneoblenegro. As for me, the pastors from the OCU should already intervene here, if they consider themselves to be pastors, and explain to a person what is good and what is evil," added Matushka Natalia.

Recall that the church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in Nova Moschanytsia was seized by supporters of the OCU on March 3, 2019. The seizure was led by the former chairman of the Zdolbuniv Regional State Administration Sergei Kondrachuk.

The UOJ also wrote that the UOC community in Nova Moschanytsia asks all those concerned to help with the infrastructure of a new church built to replace the one grabbed by the schismatics.

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