Сommunity of seized UOC church in Chetvertnia: We don’t repay evil to evil

UOC believers of vlg. Chetvertnia, Volyn region. Photo: press service of the Volyn Eparchy

On October 5, 2019, believers of the village of Chetvertnia in the Manevichy District, Volyn Region, met participants in the general cross procession, organized by the Volyn Eparchy of the UOC on the occasion of All Saints of the Volyn Land, reports the press service of the eparchy.

Participants in the prayer procession delivered to Chetvertnia the Tikhvin Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos and the icon of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women, as well as a reliquary with particles of incorrupt relics of the saints. The faithful, whose Saviour Transfiguration Church was handed over to use to OCU supporters, met shrines in the yard of a temporarily equipped church.

“We do not repay evil to evil. We preserve peace in the soul and Christ in our hearts. We hope for Him,” said one of the parishioners of the seized church.

A local priest noted that after the trials, the religious community of the UOC became more united and numerous. According to him, now much more people come to prayer in a temporary church – after the well-known events, many turned to the foundations of Orthodoxy, which further strengthened their faith.

Twice more believers came to meet the cross procession and the shrine of the land of Volyn than the religious community had previously counted: kneeling and with tears in their eyes, people prayed the Mother of God, the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women and God's saints for peace for the village divided in two, love in their hearts, the hearts of relatives and fellow villagers.

As reported earlier, on August 20, 2019, in the village of Chetvertnia, a commission consisting of officials from the Volyn RSA, accompanied by the police, “handed over” the Saviour Transfiguration Church of the UOC to local supporters of the OCU. Under the pretext of taking an inventory, a crowd of drunken men pushed aside parishioners and cut down the locks; the believers were accused of missing icons and threatened with arrest.

We recall that on October 1, the general cross procession of the eparchy, which set out in Lutsk, visited the village of Zhidychin, where the UOC community also suffered from the church raiding of the OCU.

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