The Church of the Crowbar and Angle Grinder: another episode

Yanchuk cutting off the church lock with an angle grinder. Photo: "Visti" newspaper – Pulyny/Chervonoarmiisk.

The OCU continues to shock Orthodox Ukrainians. "Priest" Serhiy Yanchuk personally cut the locks off the St. Paraskeva Church of the UOC in the village of Cherniavka, Zhytomyr region. Usually, Dumenko's clergy hand off the "dirty" work of church raiding to others, and try to prevent filming: they cover cameras, knock phones out of hands, etc.

In this case, things were different: Yanchuk happily posed for a photographer from a local media outlet. Here is a shot of him first drilling the lock with a power drill, then cutting it with an angle grinder, and then knocking it off with a hammer.

When all the doors have been forced open, Yanchuk demonstratively crosses himself before entering the church and says: “Holy Paraskeva-sister, bless us.” And it is this short phrase that is most striking.

You have taken the church away from the faithful, you are forcibly seizing what belongs to others, you are acting against everything Christ teaches. And after all this, you ask for a blessing? How can Paraskeva, who endured terrible suffering for Christ, bless you? How do OCU clergy even think, committing violence and seizing another's church, then falling to their knees before the altar and "praying" there, while UOC faithful outside are left in tears and bloodshed? What "blessing" do they expect? What kind of "faith" is this at all?

Returning to Cherniavka. To the rector of the UOC church, who has served here for many years, Yanchuk contemptuously says that he is an "enemy of the people" and that he would not even shake his hand. No further comment is needed.

Yanchuk himself serves in a completely different settlement, and the St. Paraskeva Church is of no real use to him. Therefore, the ending is predictable: after the takeover, the church will remain closed, and “services” there will, at best, be held only on major feast days.

Incidentally, in the seized church there was a donation box with the inscription "For the Armed Forces of Ukraine." But that did not spare the rector from being branded an "enemy of the people."

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