OCU attempts to seize church in Demyantsi: Lock cut down, deacon beaten up

At 13.20 on November 4, 2022, several cars with strong young people in sportswear drove up to the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Demyantsi, Kyiv region (the Boryspil Eparchy). Some of the faces were covered with balaclavas. They climbed over the fence of the temple and sawed off the locks of the church doors and on the fence gate, reports Alexei Kravchenko, a chorister of the temple.

“The deacon of our church, Fr Vladimir, tried to stop them, they beat him and also hit the mother. They told me, cursing: ‘If you don’t get home, we’ll kill you,’” said Alexei.

He says that “it was like the 90s - the mobsters drove up and broke down the doors in two minutes”. The believers who defended the temple were showered with obscenities and threats. The raiders retreated only after the police arrived. They left, and in the end, they said to the priest: "We give you two weeks so that in two weeks you will not be here."

The night before, on November 3, the OCU supporters gathered in front of the fence of the temple, insulting and humiliating the UOC faithful, who at that time were praying in the church. When the parishioners tried to reason with the OCU members, they began to threaten in response, threw stones and tried to hit the women. "We will kill you!" they shouted. Then they tried to open the locked gate of the fence with a crowbar. The believers of the UOC called the police, and only then did the OCU activists left the church grounds. The parishioners did not disperse until late in the evening, they were afraid that the seizure attempt would be repeated.

According to Alexei, the OCU members tried three times to take over the Exaltation of the Cross Church, and the organization of the seizure is being led by the head of the village council, Serhii Kuzmenko, who, from the first days of the war, set out to get rid of the UOC community in Demyantsi. For this, the head of the village council organized a meeting of local residents, to which believers and the priest of the UOC were not invited, and decided to transfer the community to the OCU. After that, several local residents, together with Kuzmenko, came to the church and demanded that the keys be given to them. When the rector of the temple, Archpriest Grigory Gayduchok, refused, the chairman told him: "I will destroy you, your church will not be here."

“We are afraid that they will take the church away from us, no one will stop them,” says Alexei Kravchenko.

As reported, in the village of Chechelivka, OCU members robbed and seized a UOC chapel.