Persecuted UOC parish in Zeleniv reads Great Canon

A Bukovynian Orthodox community, deprived of its church in 2024, conducts Great Lent services in an adapted facility.

On February 24, 2026, the St. Michael community of the Chernivtsi Eparchy in Zeleniv performed the reading of the second part of the Great Penitential Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete, reports a UOJ correspondent.

The service took place in the premises that the believers adapted for prayer after the seizure of their church.

The reading of the Canon was led by the parish rector, Archpriest Ihor Popovchuk.

As the UOJ reported, on September 10, 2024, OCU raiders used an angle grinder to cut the locks on the church doors and smashed a window through which they broke into the sanctuary. According to the Orthodox believers of Bukovyna, such an act resembled barbarism more than Christianity.