UOC priest being forcibly held by TRC in Ternopil Region

TRC. Photo: Mirror Weekly

On November 2, 2024, almost 55-year-old Archpriest Oleh Melnyk of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was forcibly conscripted in the Ternopil region. A video containing this information was posted on the Facebook page of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church. According to the information provided, the priest was stopped at a checkpoint and taken to the Territorial Recruitment Center (TRC).

Father Oleh remained at the TRC for over a day without food, and his phone was confiscated, depriving him of the opportunity to contact his family. According to a video posted online, one of the TRC workers assaulted the priest, after which his blood pressure spiked. Police officers who arrived at the scene took the victim's statement, but despite this, the UOC archpriest was not released and could not perform Sunday liturgy.

The video calls for prayers for Archpriest Oleh Melnyk, who says in the video that clergy should not be fighting with weapons: "We have a call from God – to be at war with the devil and to fight not only for ourselves but for the whole world, and to protect all people so that the Lord grants us victory over sin."

As previously reported by the UOJ, on October 25, Father Petro Cholak, dean of the Novovolynsk district of the Volodymyr-Volynsky Diocese of the UOC, was forcibly conscripted in Lutsk.

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