Teen describes the seizure of UOC Cathedral in Cherkasy

Seizure of the UOC Cathedral in Cherkasy, October 17, 2024. Photo: religionnews

On November 25, 2024, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) cathedral in Cherkasy was seized. One of the altar servers, a teenager who witnessed the events, wrote a letter to Metropolitan Theodosiy of Cherkasy and Kaniv, sharing his impressions of what happened. The text of the letter was published by the Cherkasy Eparchy.

The young man described how he and other believers arrived at the cathedral in the morning. “It wasn’t really clear what to do. I stood by the road with our women,” he wrote. When Metropolitan Theodosiy joined them, the believers received his blessing and approached the gates, where they were blocked by the attackers. Clashes began: “They started spraying us with pepper spray. Then I saw our people begin to enter through the gates onto the cathedral grounds!”

The teenager recalled feeling a strong urge to enter the cathedral: “An intuitive feeling told me I absolutely had to get inside. At that moment, it seemed to me that these were not just gates to the cathedral but to the Kingdom of Heaven! Either you get in, or you don’t.”

In the chaos of the clashes, the altar server found himself in the thick of the action. When an activist in military uniform attacked him, he accidentally grabbed a stick from the man. “It turned out to be pieces of the broken bishop’s staff of our Metropolitan! I ended up holding two pieces,” the teenager recounted. When he tried to return the fragments to Metropolitan Theodosiy, the bishop said, “Keep them with you.”

To the prayers of “Theotokos, Virgin, Rejoice”, a group of believers, led by Metropolitan Theodosiy, approached the doors of the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, where they encountered another obstacle – the attackers had barricaded the entrance with benches and tables. Despite being hit and sprayed with gas, Metropolitan Theodosiy pressed on: “They sprayed him in the eyes with gas, struck him, but he kept moving forward.”

The altar server also described his efforts to help the faithful enter the cathedral: “I grabbed one of the benches and moved it aside. Our parishioners somehow started getting inside.”

When the first part of the confrontation ended, Metropolitan Theodosiy addressed the faithful, asking, “How are you? Is everyone okay? The Lord protects us and will not abandon us.”

As previously reported by the UOJ, the press service of the OCU in Cherkasy claimed that it was UOC believers who stormed St. Michael’s Cathedral, resulting in dozens of injured individuals being hospitalized.

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