St. Michael's Cathedral, Shepetivka
The St. Michael's Cathedral of the UOC in Shepetivka was seized during the large-scale anti-church campaign of 2022–2023 with the active participation of local authorities. The process began on May 7, 2022, with the blocking of the entrance to the church and attempts to impose a "transition" to the OCU through gatherings of outsiders organized under the leadership of the city's mayor, Vitaliy Buzil. Throughout 2022, there were illegal re-registrations, pressure on the clergy and parishioners, provocations, threats, and attempts at forcible seizure, including incidents of detaining believers and preparing barricades at the church.
The final assault took place on April 8, 2023: an aggressive crowd of OCU supporters, with the assistance of the police, broke into the cathedral by cutting the locks with a grinder. Violence and humiliation were used against believers, including children; the church was desecrated, and the altar was seized. Despite months of resistance from the community and clergy, the cathedral was forcibly taken, and the participants in the seizure were not held accountable, becoming a symbol of the displacement of the UOC in the region.
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