Rector in Kuzmyn: Claims that I refused soldiers’ funerals are lies

Archpriest Georgy Sikalyuk. Photo: Khmelnytsky Eparchy

Archpriest Heorhiy Sikaliuk, rector of the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Kuzmyn, Krasyliv District, Khmelnytskyi Region, categorically refuted rumors being spread in the OCU that he allegedly refused to conduct funeral services for soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. A corresponding video was published by the Khmelnytskyi Eparchy of the UOC.

“Such rumors did circulate, but no one ever refused. None of the relatives or close ones ever came to me to ask that the church be opened and a funeral service served for those fallen soldiers,” Fr. Heorhiy said, noting that four soldiers are buried in the local cemetery.

According to him, he himself offered to conduct the funeral service. “Once I personally offered, when there was a fallen soldier, to the widow of the deceased. But they refused and held the funeral service in the city of Krasyliv, there, at the Trinity church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” the priest explained.

Fr. Heorhiy emphasized: “If they had come – there would have been no questions at all. The church would have been opened, and everyone could have been present and prayed for the repose of the souls of our soldier-heroes.”

Fr. Heorhiy also spoke about the parish’s systematic assistance to Ukrainian servicemen from the first days of the full-scale invasion.

“We cooperate with the Armed Forces. And in the first days of the war we gave a lot of food, provided a lot of funds and medical assistance, medicines. We bought generators, solar stations, helped purchase vehicles, equipped an ambulance for the soldiers,” the rector listed.

The parish has a token of gratitude from the 77th Airmobile–Airborne Brigade in the form of the brigade’s flag. “Brothers-in-arms – the guys whom we helped – thanked us with their signatures and gave us the flag of their brigade,” the priest noted.

Archpriest Heorhiy personally traveled to the liberated Kherson Region with humanitarian aid. “Our priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Khmelnytskyi Eparchy volunteered and traveled there many times with material assistance,” he added.

Among the parishioners of the church are many families whose loved ones are fighting at the front. One parishioner said: “My husband is at the front, and we have always gone to this church. We were married here, we baptized our children here. My husband is in the choir. He has been fighting for the fourth year already.”

Other parishioners confirmed that their sons are also defending Ukraine.

“People who serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine are also parishioners of this church – of this very church with this priest,” the report emphasizes.

The church in the village of Kuzmyn has existed since the 1800s. Archpriest Heorhiy Sikaliuk has served there since 1992.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that the UOC church in Kuzmyn faces an imminent seizure.

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