UOC church sealed in Zhukivka village
Parishioners and the rector outside the UOC church in Zhukivka. Photo: Nikita Balkovskyi / Threads
On October 15, 2026, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in the village of Zhukivka, Brovary district, Kyiv region, was sealed shut. Parishioner Nikita Balkovskyi reported the incident in a post on Threads.
According to Balkovskyi, the church was sealed by a group calling itself the “village community,” which voted a month earlier to transfer the parish to the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). He said that after activists failed to persuade the rector to join Dumenko’s organization, they forged documents to push through the transfer.
The parish recently celebrated its last Divine Liturgy in the church, according to the post. “I think we all know what lies ahead for the church – neglect and ruin,” the parishioner wrote.
As the UOJ previously reported, authorities also sealed a UOC church in the village of Syniak near Kyiv.
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