In Kurozvany OCU activists break into UOC home church and take out an altar
Believers, who after the seizure of the Holy Protection temple, temporarily prayed in the church house, were told by telephone that their property was on the road.
On the morning of April 12, at about 8:00, opponents of the canonical Church in the village of Kurozvany in Goshcha district in Rovno region broke down the doors to the church house, which has been serving as a home church for the parishioners of the seized church for more than a month, and took the property belonging to the UOC religious community out to the street.
The fact that the doors were broken in the priest’s house was reported to the parishioners of the UOC by the burglars themselves.
“In the morning we were called by our fellow villagers who told us to go on the road and take our property,” one of the parishioners, who refused to give her name out of fear of harassment, told the UOJ. “We quickly got together and ran: in the middle of the street there was a throne with the Holy Gifts, a seven-branded candlestick, and those who had committed it were rejoicing and waiting for some investigator who was supposed to come soon.”
The rector of the seized church, Archpriest Vladimir Koval, with his family left the village the day before this event. The priest was forced to leave the house in which he had lived for more than 20 years, so that the parishioners had a place to hold worship services.
“Everything that happened today in Kurozvany, I can’t name anything other than madness and desecration of the shrines,” commented Archpriest Mikhail Petrov, dean of the Goshcha deanery. “We managed to keep our community. Only this Sunday more than 100 people came to the temporary church for prayer, now I don’t know what to do with them and where to find the truth. The UOC religious community has the right of ownership to the church house, however, now no one reacts to documents, people, or law.”
Currently, the situation in the village is unstable. The police who arrived at the scene of action are inactive, the "rules of the game" are established by the OCU supporters.
Recall, activists seized the Holy Intercession temple in Kurozvany on March 1, 2019: under the pretext of carrying out an inventory, supporters of the OCU broke the locks. The police officers present on the spot made no attempt to stop the perpetrators. Officials from the Goshcha District State Administration entered the church and, after staying there for 15 minutes, allegedly did the stock-taking. Afterwards the activists went to the house of the rector demanding that he immediately move out.
