Deputy boasts of participation in criminal seizure of UOC church in Kolomyia

Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the "People’s Front" Yuri Timoshenko proudly confirmed that he had participated in the forcible seizure of the Orthodox church in Kolomyia, saving his ancestors from being mocked by the "Russian world". He said this in an interview with "Pershy Kozatsky".

"Now the church is ours. Ours means of the Ukrainian community of the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine," said the people's deputy. To the journalist's question how he could qualify actions to seize the church, the deputy called illegal actions "the triumph of justice".

"It was built by our ancestors, not by the Muscovites. We must not forget that in 1772, after the first division of Poland, when we got to Austria, all the churches in Western Ukraine massively transferred to the Greek Catholic Church."

"There was I and two more deputies of the City Council. They be praised, the rest like the rats hid. Not to spoil their reputation, not to insult the voters?" the people’s deputy is outraged. "Their right to choose." I did it consciously. If someone does not want to vote for me from those "Russian", let them not vote, I do not need it."

When the journalist clarified that the court on October 4 recognized the legitimacy of the rights of the UOC community to their temple, the servant of the people replied that he "does not trust the Ukrainian trial", which throws Maidan activists behind bars and "no torturer or separ(atist) was imprisoned".

People's Deputy Timoshenko remembered that in the court chained himself to Vita Zavirukha, accused of armed robbery as part of a gang and shooting law enforcers who pursued them. The girl, in turn, got notorious due to the YouTube video, in which she is firing on a Ukrainian village from a grenade launcher and posing with a shell on which she wrote "Death to the Orthodox".

Archpriest Alexis Dobosh, a professor at the Kiev Theological Academy, explained that the allegations of the Uniates about the construction of the church in Kolomyia by Greek Catholics are groundless: it was built by the Orthodox for at least 113 years before the formation of the union.

The seizure of the Annunciation Church in Kolomyia was committed on October 18 by the priests of the UGCC with the support of the "Right Sector" and the "Black Hundred".

Experts say that such actions of Uniates can lead to religious war in Ukraine, and publicist Alexander Yermolenko believes that representatives of the UGCC are not going to settle for one takeover and "this is a "crusade" against Orthodoxy".