We will pray till they quit attempts to pull it down, – believers about Tithes Monastery

Attacks on the UOC temples and Tithes Monastery in particular appear as attempts to stir up religious confrontation in order to distract people from their being cheated by the government. It was told to the UOJ correspondent by the Kiev residents who had arrived at the prayerful standing in defense of the monastery.

"Confrontation can be stirred up only with Orthodox. Because we will not fight. We will kneel, we will pray – but we will not give up our shrines. Yet even the Orthodox can sometimes have frayed nerves: if you are hit – you can hit back," says Alla Ratushnaya, a parishioner of the UOC temple of the Holy Prince Oleg Briansky.

She explained that people will defend the temples, "until the spirit of demolition and the spirit of destruction has been exhausted: we have many shrines, and they may want to destroy them for various, incomprehensible reasons."

Artem, a parishioner of the church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, believes that the young activists who came to the monastery with right-wing radical slogans had been misled and they should try to understand the issues of faith themselves.

"We are united by a common impulse to protect our holy places. People with a pure heart go to protect their house, their saints,” says Valentina Kudryavskaya, a parishioner the UOC temple of the Holy Prince Oleg Briansky.

On February 5, near the Desyatinny (Tithes) Monastery, another prayer service was held in support of the monastery and its brethren, which gathered more than 500 Orthodox believers. On February 3 right-wing radicals announced an action in support of the detained arsonists of the Monastery. Fearing that activists would go from their venue to organize provocations near the monastery, indifferent believers gathered for a prayer service in defense of the monastery and its brothers.