"Priest" of the OCU: It is a holy thing to cut the lock on a UOC temple

On 22 November 2023, cleric of the Chernivtsi diocese of the OCU, "priest" Roman Hryshchuk, said that sawing off the locks on the temples of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a holy thing.

Hryshchuk published the video on his Facebook page, accompanying it with a post titled "Don't play Yushchenko, or when sawing off the locks on an occupied church is a holy deed."

In his video, Hryshchuk commented on what he said was a "scandalous statement" by a group of OCU clerics who wrote "10 theses" to the leadership of the structure calling on it to stop violent seizures of UOC churches.

"The Russian sniper on the bell tower is a legitimate target, or not?" writes Hryshchuk, comparing the locks on UOC temples to shackles on hostages.

"It is absolutely necessary to remove if an act of lawlessness is committed! Is it possible to allow that the temple as a hostage (it could be your grandfather, child or wife) held a few adherents zombified by Moscow and do not let in the whole religious community, which with multiple advantage, according to the current legislation, at the meeting legally transferred to the OCU?" outraged Hryshchuk.

According to the "priest", the believers of the UOC "hide behind people and icons, and also behind temples and monasteries" and "fulfil the instruction of their undotiran".

He said that "we have all separatists are very even church-going", "Girkin and his militants are novices of the Sviatohirsk Lavra", and "Novinsky is a deacon".

"Shall we remember by what methods Christ chased the merchants out of the temple? Shall we recall the words and epithets with which He called the then Moscow patriarchate, the scribes and Pharisees? He could have sat down with them at the negotiating table, could have found a tolerant approach, could have understood the other side, could have agreed in the middle."

"Is it not clear that the Mospatriarchate consciously all 33 years of independence consistently at war with Ukraine and everything Ukrainian? And so, covering itself with icons, children, temples and grandmothers! And also holding hostage personally your future and the future of your children!" writes Hryshchuk.

At the end of his post the "priest" asks, "So is it necessary to remove the shackles from the hostage temple, or from the soul and body of the hostage with an angle grinder, or not?"

Earlier the UOJ wrote that the chaplain of the OCU Roman Hryshchuk criticised the believers of the UOC, who say that a Christian can only praise God.