Rector of Tarasivka temple on attempted seizure: deputies helped the OCU

On October 21, 2022, a new video of the seizure of the UOC church in Tarasivka appeared, when armed people in balaclavas, in the presence of local officials, tried to break into the Dormition church of the UOC. The video was posted by the Pershy Kozatsky Youtube channel. The action of the radicals was commented on by the rector of the church in Tarasivka, Archpriest Volodymyr Kozachynsky.

According to him, thanks to the police, the seizure of the temple was avoided, but many parishioners who came to defend their shrine suffered: they were pushed, insulted, even beaten. Father Volodymyr noted the raider siezure was attended by the head of the Boyarka UTC Olexandr Zarubin, deputy Andriy Ventov and other people's deputies, as well as local activists, who in August organized a fake meeting of the villagers to transfer the shrine to the OCU.

“The head of the UTC Zarubin was present here; however, he stood outside the church territory; there were also officials, local deputies, Andriy Ventov; there were local activists who gathered the so-called meeting of the village territorial community. They wanted to break the locks, they wanted to seize our temple, our property,” said Archpriest Volodymyr Kozachynsky.

He stressed that the community of the UOC remains faithful to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and will continue to defend its temple. “We pray for peace, for our military, for the victory of Ukraine, and at the same time we defend our position, our faith. We know that our prayer reaches God… I ask everyone to pray for us, for Father Volodymyr, for our parishioners who have suffered today, and for our Orthodox Ukraine,” called the rector of the church in Tarasivka.

Recall that on August 21, 2022, a meeting of the territorial community was held in Tarasivka to transfer the Dormition church to the OCU, but the believers did not allow the schismatics to seize the shrine, although the mayor of Boyarka promised to gather all the inhabitants of the city to transfer the communities of the UOC to the OCU. On October 19, supporters of Dumenko, with the support of armed people, tried again to take the Dormition church from the community of the UOC.

As the UOJ wrote, the community in Tarasivka defended the temple from the seizure of the OCU.

Read also