Armed people kidnap a Ukrainian Orthodox Church priest in Kyiv region

On March 16, 2022, in the village of Tomashivka, Fastiv district, Kyiv region, unknown armed men kidnapped the cleric of the Kyiv diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Gennady Batenko, the website of the UOC diocese reports.

On Wednesday evening, unknown people broke into the priest's house, forcibly took him out into the yard and took him away in an unknown direction. An appeal to law enforcement officers has not yet yielded any result – the police said they do not have information about Fr. Gennady’s whereabouts.

Archpriest Gennady Batenko, a surgeon by profession, is the Deputy Chairman of the Synodal Department of the UOC for Health and Medical and Scientific Work, Dean of the Second Hospital District of Kyiv.

In Tomashivka there is a monastery in honor of the Deposition of the Robe of the Most Holy Theotokos in Vlaherna, which was formed in 2000 as a skete of the Kyiv Sviato-Vvedensky Monastery of the UOC. Every year, thousands of people from Kyiv head to the monastery in a religious procession with the miraculous Support to the Humble Icon of the Mother of God.

As reported by the UOJ, the abbot of the Dukonsky monastery told the details about the seizure of the shrine.

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