Laity of the returned church of UOC сelebrate patron saint day with prayer
Bishop Pimen of Dubno, arriving at the celebration, urged the present believers to pray for reasoning those who take away the temples of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
On the third day of the Resurrection of Christ, several hundred believers, the newly appointed Bishop Pimen of Dubno, vicar of the Rovno eparchy, and thirty priests solemnly celebrated the feast day at the Holy Resurrection Church of Ostrog, reports a UOJ correspondent.
In 2005, the supporters of the Kiev Patriarchate attempted to seize the temple of the UOC.
Bishop Pimen was greeted in the temple with poems, bouquets of flowers and Easter cakes. In his sermon after reading the Gospel, the hierarch asked the believers to entrust all their life to the hands of God: "No matter how old we are, I am convinced that at any age we want to be in the hands of the mother, where all problems seemed so miserable, and any pain disappeared." Bishop Pimen urged everyone present to pray that the Lord helped to reason and direct on the path of true salvation those who grab temples from the UOC.
Rector of the Holy Resurrection Church, Protopriest Victor Zemlianoy, in his welcoming address to the Bishop, said, "The Ostrog land gave Orthodoxy the first printed Gospel, was the cradle for many confessors and saints of Christ, and I would like today's prayer to inspire faith and bring spiritual benefits to everyone who will offer it in this holy temple."
By tradition, that day, believers from the surrounding villages gathered in the temple. "I attended this church when I was young, when I’ve grown old, my legs themselves bring me here," says a pilgrim from the village of Gremiachee of the Ostrog district. "This year I came not alone, but with my grandchildren, I want them to take in the spirit of Easter joy, to feel all the beauty of the divine service, to rejoice with hundreds of Christians in this ancient sacred temple."
The patron saint’s day in Ostrog culminated with the cross procession and prayer service, after which Bishop Pimen presented parishioners with Easter eggs.
Divine services at the Holy Resurrection Church of the UOC of Ostrog, Rovno region, resumed in the summer of 2007, after a two-year break. In 2005, the rector of the church Yaroslav Khavruk fell into schism. However, the believers did not allow the Kiev Patriarchate to enter their church. As a result, it was sealed by local authorities. The parishioners, led by the newly appointed priest Viktor Zemlianoy, were forced to pray in a tent set in a church fence.
On July 4, 2007, by the decision of the Highest Administrative Court of Ukraine, the claims of the UOC KP community were recognized as unfounded, and the Holy Resurrection Church was returned to the religious community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
