Kremenchug diocese denies information about "seizure of the UAOC church"

Information about the alleged seizure of the UAOC church in the village of Troitskoe, Globino district, Poltava region, is false. The village community voluntarily decided to transfer to the canonical Church, reports the Information and Education Department of the UOC.

"The religious community wrote a petition addressed to the ruling bishop Vladyka Nikolai, that they repent and want to return to the fold of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," said the priest of the Holy Trinity Church, Priest Bogdan Garagulia. "The document received 20 signatures."

According to the priest, two days after the community assembly strong people came and started threatening the believers, agitating for the transition to the Kiev Patriarchate. Later, the UAOC representatives seized the temple, cutting the locks and breaking the doors.

"They now write that they served under the church. This is not true, says Father Bogdan. "It wasn’t they but we served under the temple."

The priest denied the fact that the community of the UOC had seized the temple by force. According to him, the owner of the land plot and, in fact, the church building gave the keys to the temple himself.

"Only two families in еру village decided to remain under the jurisdiction of the UAOC," says Priest Bogdan Garagulia. - And recently, a reporter from Gazeta.ua has come and conducted his "investigation". I do not know why he decided to write that it was we who seized the church and other nonsense. Although the whole village knows that this is not so."

According to the rector of the Holy Trinity Church, people who have previously travelled to the neighboring village now come to worship. And on Sundays and holidays, now from 20 to 50 believers gather for service.