OCU releases video of church doors being cut open in Bykivnia, Kyiv

OCU raiders cut doors on Kyiv temple in Bykovnya. Photo: UOJ collage

A video has appeared online showing the seizure of the capital's St. John's Church of the UOC in Bykivnia, published on the TikTok account of "Boyove Braterstvo" (Combat Brotherhood). The footage clearly shows how the doors of the church building are being cut with an angle grinder, despite previous claims about an alleged "voluntary transition of the community" to the OCU.

After breaking in, "Metropolitan of Donetsk and Mariupol" Horobtsov entered the building. He walked into the church through the cut doors without even crossing himself.

In a comment on the same video, he said that "the religious community changed its legal affiliation last year." However, the UOJ previously published information from the church's rector, Archimandrite Pavel, stating that no meeting regarding the transition to the OCU had taken place, and the church's parishioners learned about the "transition" from the internet.

Horobtsov also claimed that it was allegedly "unfair for the Russian world and Russian world ideology to reign within the walls of this church." "We want to hold the first service here today, [...] a memorial service for all the fallen, for all the deceased. I am sure this will be a completely new page in the life of Bykivnia."

Meanwhile, the UOC clergy regularly held memorial services in Bykivnia Forest for priests of the Brovary district who were shot and tortured by the Bolsheviks in the 20th century.

According to the "metropolitan," the second "spiritual front" in Ukraine was opened not by raiders seizing churches, but by believers whose shrines are being taken away from them. In an interview, Horobtsov also claimed that "there cannot be 100% victory while the Moscow Patriarchate reigns in Ukraine," adding that "it was precisely the Moscow Patriarchate that brought this war here."

"We want love for Ukraine, love for neighbors, and above all love for God to reign here," the OCU "hierarch" also stated, adding that his main goal is to "convey words of truth" and teach people to believe in the "true Orthodox Church".

The UOJ previously reported that during the seizure of St. John's Church of the UOC in Bykivnia, a group of people in camouflage blocked the territory, and raiders, after cutting the locks, broke into the shrine.

Read also