Metropolitan Feodosiy: 2-3 people attend the OCU-raided church in Cherkasy
For over a year in the Cherkasy Diocese of the UOC, supporters of the OCU, backed by local authorities, have seized several dozen churches from Orthodox communities.
The Sretenky Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Cherkasy, seized by OCU adherents on August 3, 2023, stands empty. Metropolitan Feodosiy of Cherkasy and Kaniv revealed this in an interview with human rights activist Oleg Denisov.
"This church, like most seized churches, stands empty; there is no one to go and pray there," noted the hierarch. "Two or three people attend the Sunday services. In the past, there was hardly any room to move."
The Metropolitan recalled that the "decision" to transfer the Sretenky parish to the OCU was made by employees of budgetary organizations gathered by the authorities at the stadium, although the real church community at a legitimate parish meeting reaffirmed its allegiance to the UOC.
"The minutes of this meeting were properly certified and submitted to the regional state administration. Moreover, the legal department of the Cherkasy Diocese prepared a warning to the state registrar about possible raiding actions by invaders. Neither the minutes nor the warning were not only taken into account but also, probably, considered at all. No one answered our requests, our demands not to carry out illegal registrations," the hierarch said.
He noted that over the past one and a half years, OCU supporters, with the support of local authorities, have seized several dozen churches from UOC communities in the Cherkasy Diocese.
"There is an order, there is a political vector by which officials act, even those who, just yesterday, assured us of their love for the Church, saying that they would help and, under no circumstances, would betray their faith and their Church, in which their fathers, mothers, grandfathers, and they were baptized," emphasized the bishop.
As reported by the UOJ, Metropolitan Feodosiy stated that decisions of local councils aimed against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and their appeals to the central authorities to ban the UOC are made under the guidance of a single coordination center.
