UOC rep says situation with seizures is threatening in Pereyaslav district

OCU raiders locked themselves inside the seized UOC church in Pereyaslav. Photo: a video screenshot from the "proSLAV-novini Pereyaslav" YouTube channel

In the Pereyaslav region of the Boryspil Eparchy, authorities, together with OCU raiders, attack UOC priests with impunity, seize churches, and threaten believers, said Archimandrite Neil (Semenets), the dean of the first Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi district.

"They beat Father Volodymyr, the deacon and the matushka (from the UOC Church of the Exaltation of the Cross in the village of Demyantsi – Ed.) with stones," Father Neal said and added that in Demyantsi the clerics are threatened to be burnt down along with the house. "They are given two weeks to get out of the village," the deacon cited the threats of the OCU raiders. According to him, it is a terrible shock for the rector of the church in Demyantsi, Archpriest Grigory Gaiduchok, because he built this church. "After the seizure of the church, Father Grigory fell ill, he is in a very depressed mood. After all, he is already 65 years old," Father Neil explained.

According to the archimandrite, "the situation in the area is threatening": "We are virtually unprotected, they are beating us up, gathering these fake meetings of their own."

"They wrote an announcement - 'a meeting of the territorial community of the Borysivka micro-district, some people came, passed a resolution on the transfer to the OCU, chose a 'headman' and went to register. And in such a way, 110 communities in the Kyiv region, in fact, hold meetings of the territorial community instead of the religious one," Father Nil described the situation and added that all the processes of transfer to the OCU are actually led by the Mayor of Pereyaslav Vyacheslav Saulko.

"He takes part in all the meetings, insults us as 'Moskals', 'collaborators', declares that allegedly our soldiers are being killed because of us, etc. Everywhere the same story – you are Moscow and the enemy. When in Pereyaslav the OCU members stormed St. Boris and Gleb's Church, he visited them and said something approving. He even told me that he thought it was we who had cut the locks from our own church," the priest said.

The OCU representatives are especially active in "attacking churches in small villages, where priests are simply defenceless," said the dean of the first Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi district.

As reported, OCU raiders seized the UOC Church of the Exaltation of the Cross in Demyantsi.

Read also