UOC Spokesman: Head of OCU had to respond to the events in Zadubrivka

Deputy Head of the UOC DECR Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich. Photo: screenshot of the video on the “1Kozak” YouTube channel

The incident on the evening of May 4, 2020, in the village of Zadubrivka in the Chernivtsi Region was banditry, and the leadership of the OCU should have responded to this, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, Deputy Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC, emphasized.

“I think that the leadership of the so-called OCU should have responded to this to tame ardor of its adherents so that they would stop seizing the temples of our Church,” he said on the air of “1Kozak” channel.

While believers are forbidden to gather in the church in groups of more than 10 people, about 40 adherents of the OCU gave up on all the prohibitions and got together to take over the church from the parishioners of the UOC, he added.

In his opinion, the negative picture created by the biased media around the UOC also eventuated the conflict in Zadubrivka.

Archpriest Nikolai noted that the government’s response to the incident is also important – the perpetrators must be held accountable for their deeds, while the decisions on illegal “transitions” of the canonical Church’s parishes to the OCU must be rescinded.

The spokesman of the UOC is convinced that the citizens of our country need to build Ukraine of the future, for which reason it is important to learn how to live next to other people.

It is unthinkable to hope that Ukrainians will dismiss their confessional affiliations en masse to pass in bulk to the OCU, the clergyman believes.

He called on society to an internal inclusive dialogue, which is the only way to develop a model of social life in which everyone will live a comfortable life.

Earlier, religious scholar Yelena Kulachevich noted that the head of the OCU Epiphany Dumenko finds it more suitable to congratulate the head of the UGCC Sviatoslav Shevchuk than to be responsible for the actions of his clergy.

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