UOC priest describes church seizure in Checheliivka

Archpriest Dymytrii Horodetskyi. Photo: Dozor video screenshot

Archpriest Dymytrii Horodetskyi, dean of the Petrovske District of the Oleksandriia Eparchy of the UOC, said that the Intercession Church in the village of Chechelievka, Kirovohrad Region, had been sealed three years ago following an attempt to re-register the shrine under the jurisdiction of the OCU. According to the priest, during the seizure of the church on December 23, 2025, activists and clerics of Dumenko’s structure behaved extremely aggressively.

“When the ‘OCU church keys’ started working – angle grinders and crowbars – the question arose: if the church is being opened today, and for more than three years we also had no opportunity to pray in it, do we at least have the chance to go inside and venerate? We received a categorical refusal,” Fr. Dymytrii said in a video published on the Dozor Telegram channel.

To prevent falsification during the so-called “inventory,” representatives of the UOC parish also sought to enter the church. However, the priest was roughly pushed out by one of the activists and an OCU cleric.

“For the first time in my life, I felt how a diabolical force possesses those people who at first glance seem thin and of small stature. They grabbed me by the hair and almost lifted me off the ground,” he shared.

As the UOJ previously reported, on December 23, 2025, a group of OCU raiders seized the Intercession Church of the Oleksandriia Eparchy of the UOC in the village of Checheliivka.

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