OCU activists force priests and parishioners out of UOC church in Lubyanka

On July 14, 2022, supporters of Sergei Dumenko, led by the former chairman of the village council, Anatoly Novichenko, came to the church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the village of Lubyanka, Kyiv region, ostensibly for peaceful negotiations about the transfer of the community to the OCU, Archpriest Ilarion Shmayun told the UOJ.

However, after some time, crying out "Get out of here!", "Take the priests out of the church!" and "The Moscow Patriarchate serves Satan!", the activists pushed the clergy and parishioners out of the church.

Aggressively-minded supporters of the OCU referred to the document of the Kyiv state registrar, which formalized the re-registration of the statute of the religious community from the UOC to the OCU.

"The illegal re-registration took place on the basis of the illegal collection of signatures," the Legal Department of the Kyiv Diocese commented the situation to the UOJ.

According to Father Ilarion, knowing that OCU raiders are seizing churches under the guise of such "registration" in neighboring villages, the St. Nicholas community of the UOC notified the local authorities in advance in writing that it did not make any decisions about its transfer or re-registration of the statute.

"However, a few days before the raider seizure of the temple by the supporters of the OCU, I was invited to the Lubyanka village council only to be confronted with the fact that the statute had been re-registered and ‘the temple must be handed over’,” said the rector.

At the same time, the local government distanced itself from the situation with the words: "We have nothing to do with it. These are all people."

Later, the ex-head of the village council suggested that the clergy meet in the temple for negotiations. However, by deception and manipulation, he gathered a part of the villagers together with his like-minded people at the temple. Having gone inside, the activists unceremoniously pushed the present clergymen and deacons together with the parishioners out into the street.

In the presence of the police, who did not take any action to protect the property of the church from illegal possession, Dumenko's henchmen described the icons and objects of the church and announced that the "new priest from the OCU" would hold a prayer service here on the coming weekend.

Near the St. Nicholas church, the activists set up a security post so that "Moscow people do not burn the wooden church", thereby depriving the only local Orthodox community, which exists really, not nominally, of the opportunity to pray in its church.

"No one in the community has moved to the OCU and is not going to," said the rector, Fr. Ilarion Shmayun, and explained that the community of the UOC intends to defend its rights in court.

As the UOJ reported, the authorities of Lviv gave the UOC temple, which was repeatedly attacked by radicals, to the OCU.

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