Community about destroyed temple: They have no fear of God like Bolsheviks

After the authorities of Ivano-Frankivsk decided on February 10 to destroy the building of the Transfiguration church of the UOC, along with crosses and domes, the congregation published their appeal on the official website of the Ivano-Frankivsk diocese.

“For 30 years, there was a temple in these premises, ‘communal premises’, as the city authorities call them, divine services were performed here, thousands of children and adults were baptized, several thousand weddings were held, more than a hundred parishioners of the community were sent on their last journey,” emphasize parishioners.

Despite the fact that the temple was the center of the spiritual life of many residents of the city, the officials drove the parishioners out on the street without providing any premises in return to meet the spiritual and religious needs of the community.

“With the assistance of mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv, the city authorities will destroy the dome with the cross, eradicate the historical and ancient cross in the courtyard of the temple, and all these atrocities occur in supposedly democratic Ivano-Frankivsk,” the authors of the appeal note. “We wonder how the mayor, who awarded the title of honorary citizen of Ivano-Frankivsk to Patriarch Bartholomew, can call himself a Christian after he ordered to destroy the Orthodox church, its dome and the crosses of the Lord?”

The faithful of Ivano-Frankivsk do not understand double standards of the city authorities, which amaze with their anti-Christian actions and kindle inter-confessional enmity through granting privileges to schismatic confessions and discriminating against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In addition, the community compared officials with the Bolsheviks, who similarly had no fear of the Lord and destroyed churches en masse.

“Local authorities, without any fear of the Lord, will destroy crosses and domes like the godless Soviet authorities did a century ago. It’s scary to be witnessing such actions, but our hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, ‘Blessed are those persecuted for the righteousness' sake, For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven’,” with these words, the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Ivano-Frankivsk concluded their appeal.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that on February 7, 2022, bailiffs evicted believers from the church. Members of the community took away the throne, the altar and sacred vessels from the altar, leaving the cross and domes on the building, which will now be destroyed by the local authorities.

Now the community of the Transfiguration of the Lord church in Ivano-Frankivsk is raising funds to buy a house or a land plot.

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