Police do not consider church raid of UOC church in Ladyzhyn as a crime

Storming of the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Ladyzhyn on 28 December 2023. Photo: UOJ

The police do not consider the actions of the raiders from the OCU attempting to forcefully seize the Kazan Church of the UOC in Ladyzhyn, Vinnytsia region, on December 28, 2023, as a criminal offense. This was reported in an interview with UOJ by the rector of the church, Archpriest Yevheniy Vorobyov.

"In response to my statement regarding the attempted seizure of the church on December 28, I received a letter in which the police reported that 'civil law relations are present in this situation' and recommended turning to the court. That is, the police did not see any criminal activity in the fact that raiders cut locks, climbed into the church over people's heads, injured parishioners," said the priest.

According to Fr. Yevheniy, there is also still no police response to the community's complaints about the seizure of the church that occurred on January 9, 2024, and the brutal beating of its defenders.

The priest noted that law enforcement ignored the statements about the illegality of re-registering the church in the OCU, but they were forced to initiate criminal proceedings based on the court's decision.

"The court obliged the prosecutor's office to open a criminal case on the forgery of documents based on which the authorities re-registered the parish. The assembly, at which the decision to 'transition' to the OCU was made, was illegal, it was organized not by the community of our church but by the MHP company together with MP Mykola Kucher, and people who had no relation to our church voted. Therefore, all their decisions and all the documents adopted at this meeting are pure lawlessness. We have already received an extract from the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations about the initiation of criminal proceedings, but no investigative actions involving us have been carried out yet," said Fr. Yevheniy.

As the UOJ reported, during the attack by OCU "activists" on the Kazan Church in Ladyzhyn on December 28, the rector and about 10 parishioners, including women, were injured. Several people received bruises, one had his arm twisted, and another was dragged across concrete blocks, resulting in scraped shins. Father Yevheniy and several believers had their clothes torn.

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