Bezuhlivka UOC community, “transferred” to OCU, continues to hold services

St. Michael’s Church in Bezuhlivka. Photo: Suspilne Chernihiv

A conflict has erupted in the village of Bezuhlivka in the Nizhyn district of the Chernihiv region over the “transfer” of the religious community of St. Michael’s Church from the UOC to the OCU. According to Suspilne Chernihiv, the church’s rector, Archpriest Yaroslav Sobolevskyi, has refused to hand over the keys and continues to celebrate services, despite the fact that the OCU has already appointed a “new rector.”

On January 28, Chernihiv Regional Military Administration head Viacheslav Chaus signed an order approving the transfer on the basis of a meeting attended by people who do not worship in the church.

That is why Fr. Yaroslav, who has served as rector of the church for more than 40 years, категорically rejects the idea that what took place can be called the will of the real community. As he explained, the community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church left the hall once it became clear that the meeting was being conducted with violations: “We left the hall because it was all unfair – they were doing whatever they wanted. And those who remained were people who, probably, had never set foot in the church in their lives. It was the village territorial community that voted, not the religious community.”

The priest also rejected accusations that he had supposedly refused to perform funeral services for fallen servicemen. “None of that is true. No one came to me. Of course, I want them all to return alive and well. But if such a need arises, we have never refused and we do not refuse,” Fr. Yaroslav said.

On Pascha, April 12, OCU supporters held a “service” outside St. Michael’s Church, inviting a military chaplain from Nizhyn.

The situation in Bezuhlivka is typical of many Ukrainian villages: organizers of a “transfer” hold a meeting with members of the territorial community rather than the actual parishioners of the church, and then use that vote to formalize the “transfer” through state authorities. The real community, however – which has prayed in the church for decades – continues its liturgical life and has no intention of going anywhere.

St. Michael’s Church in Bezuhlivka is an architectural monument from the early nineteenth century, built between 1805 and 1835. The church survived Soviet persecution: its walls were used as a grain store and a stable, and from the 1960s onward it resumed functioning as a church and has belonged continuously to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church ever since.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that after the expulsion of the nuns from the Krupytskyi Monastery, they have been praying under the open sky.

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