UOC church in Kuzmyn faces seizure, media

Church of the UOC in the village of Kuzmin. Photo: "Radio Liberty"

In the village of Kuzmyn, Khmelnytskyi region, a forcible seizure of the Nativity of the Theotokos Church of the UOC is being prepared following the authorities’ registration of the results of a fake meeting on "transition" to the OCU, reports "Dozor" on kozakTv1.

According to journalists, the main and only initiator of the possible takeover is one of the largest entrepreneurs in this district, Anatoliy Mykhayliuk, who heads the agricultural company "Kuzmynsky". As claimed, he is almost the only employer in Kuzmyn and surrounding villages.

This allows the businessman to have enormous influence on many aspects of village life.

"Mykhayliuk organized the process of transferring the church to the OCU. He even arranged for himself a 'future head of the church' within Epiphaniy's structure. Bohdan Beliavets, a former brigade leader from the 'Kuzmynsky' agricultural firm, was promptly 'ordained as a deacon' of the OCU. A large-scale campaign against Orthodox Christians began in the village, along with harassment of Fr. Georgiy, who has served in the church for more than 30 years," write the journalists.

According to them, Mykhayliuk actually organized the so-called "religious community meeting", at which, in fact, people who had no relation to the parish gathered.

"All this resulted in a raider meeting on December 21, 2025, when Mykhayliuk brought his workers from surrounding villages to vote. A special bus literally circulated through the villages. Many police and SBU officers arrived at the scene," writes kozakTv1, emphasizing that in decades of service at the church, the rector Fr. Georgiy had never seen these people.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that the Khmelnytskyi RMA declared the U.S. Congress-mentioned “transfer” to the OCU legal.

Read also