In Volyn raiders try to shift a UOC temple to OCU
A group of activists arranged an “assembly” in the UOC temple, to which they are not affiliated, and voted to join the OCU.
According the UOJ correspondent, a group of outsiders (about 40 people) who do not live in this village and, in the overwhelming majority, are not parishioners of the St. Michael church, arrived at the Sunday service on December 30. Several men, who led the group, went to the temple and immediately after the service declared that they were organizing a village assembly. At the same time, they were so active they did not even allow the priest to perform the lity for the dead, ordered by one of the parishioners of the community. The fact that a woman is a mother of an employee of the Armed Forces of Ukraine turned out not to be convincing to them.
The activists engaged a discussion with the clergyman, who warned them that any court would cancel their stunt, since according to the statute of the community, any meeting may be initiated either by the superior or someone from the parochial council. As the discussion was turning into raised voices, the priest immediately called the police, since this incident was not the first at the parish: last Sunday activists also showed up here and even knocked out a video camera from the sexton when he tried to record what was happening.
According to the rector of the community, Father Andrei Genaliuk, he does not recognize the decisions of the “assembly” because he did not initiate it and warned the “guests” that he does not bless such initiatives. In addition, the priest found out among the activists the residents of the neighboring village, who have their own church community.
Previously, as activists claimed, they collected about 300 signatures in the village for transferring the parish to the new religious structure. Where these 300 signatories are and why they did not come, if not to the temple, then at least to the meeting, remained unknown.
Without approving the procedures, not voting for the chairman and secretary of the “assembly”, not keeping the minutes, the raiders voted “for the transition from the Moscow Church to the Local Church”. As an option, they pinned down the rector to the fact that he would be "thrown out of his lodging”.
The priests of the UOC, who were present in the temple, tried to clarify that the structure to which the “adherents of an independent church” are striving for does not yet exist, and those enthusiastic about it have to wait with the decision. However, judging by the pace with which reports in the Volyn media followed after the “assembly” had finished, according to which “90% of Krasnovolia residents passed to the OCU”, referring to the head of the RSA, the fact of the “transition” had been settled long before that day.
Representatives of the UOC and parishioners of the temple refused to participate in the “event”, asking not to turn the temple into a club. The priests stressed that it was an illegal meeting that did not comply with the norms of the statute of the community.
At the same time, as the UOJ correspondent specifies, the raiders voted, verbatim, for the transition not of the religious but of the territorial community of vlg. Krasnovolia.
Among the funniest moments of the occurrence on this day was the question posed to the priests of the UOC why the UOC Primate, Metropolitan Onufriy, did not appear at the “unification council”. The clergymen asked why the activists did not address such questions to Baptists or Greek Catholics, to which they responded they would definitely ask "in due time".
After the meeting, one of the staunch supporters of the Kiev Patriarchate admitted she did not know what “this would be done in that way” and that she hadn’t been tipped off about the “assembly”. When asked who of the OCU hierarchs now dominates in the region, the woman, on reflection, answered “Onufriy”.
Earlier, the Mukachevo eparchy denied information about the transition of the community of Minay village to the OCU.
