OCU activists in Bystrytsia expel UOC priest with six children from home

In the village of Bystrytsia, Lviv region, raiders from the OCU evicted from the house of the rector of the UOC Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos, Archpriest Yaroslav Yavorsky, a widower with six children, reports the assistant consultant of the Kamyanets-Podilsky City Council deputy, lawyer and head of the All-Ukrainian Sisterhood of Mary Magdalene Victoria Kokhanovska on her Facebook page.

The UOC priest was kicked out of his home after he refused to defect to the OCU. The village headman, Mykola Mandziak, threatened the parishioners and Fr Yaroslav and demanded that the community should switch to the OCU. Having collected signatures in favour of defecting to the schismatics, he closed the church and then began a campaign to evict Archpriest Yaroslav Yavorsky, who refused to go to the OCU. He forbade Fr Yaroslav to leave the house and receive people who brought him groceries. Then Mandziak said that the priest's family had to vacate the house immediately, otherwise he would call the police, who would seal the house and not allow even personal belongings to be taken.

According to Fr Yaroslav, the family had lived in the church house for 28 years and bought it back long ago. However, the headman told Fr Yaroslav that he was not the owner of the house, but a "tenant". As a result, the priest and his children were kicked out onto the street and their belongings were thrown out of the house. The local authorities did not provide him with any other accommodation. Mother Ioanna died 12 years ago, she was 36 years old. Fr Yaroslav had six children in his arms, the youngest of which was 8 months old. The eldest daughter is disabled. "Children are all I have," said the priest.

Fr Yaroslav is not allowed into the church or the parish grounds, so he cannot even pray on the grave of his deceased wife.

Some of the former parishioners of the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos, in particular Taras Smolnitsky with his family, whom Fr Yaroslav once led to the Orthodox faith, and Mykola Khomin have sided with the headman, who has defected to the schismatics.

"It is terrible when other countries of the world accept our displaced people, support the people during the war, and at the same time our own Ukrainian Judahs drive out (the priest – Ed.) with six children into the street from the house in which they have lived for 28 years," wrote Viktoria Kokhanovska.

As reported, during the seizure of the UOC church in Pyrohivtsi, OCU members mobbed a lying priest.

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