"Love for your neighbor” version from OCU or why OCU "bishop" beat a woman

On the evening of October 29, 2021, a story appeared on the ICTV channel about the “bishop” of the OCU, Adrian Kulik, beating a woman with his fists.

Let us emphasize that the word "beat" is neither a hyperbole nor an exaggeration, since Kulik was methodically hitting his housemate with punches in her chest and abdomen for several minutes. When the victim took out her phone and tried to film on video what was happening, Kulik snatched the gadget from her, trampled it underfoot and kicked it into the bushes.

The woman beaten by the "bishop" of the OCU said her chest and abdomen had been seriously injured; besides, she had bruises on her arms. Ivanna Berezhnaya (this is the name of the victim) reported that Kulik also rudely insulted her with swear words. “He beat me, humiliated, insulted me with obscene words. We are very afraid to live with such a person who does not control his aggression,” she added.

Later, Kulik attacked Ivanna's husband, who was trying to get video from surveillance cameras from the concierge, with fists, knocked him to the ground and sat on top. In addition, the “hierarch” also clashed with an ICTV journalist who tried to get his commentary on the incident.

According to Ivanna Berezhnaya, the reason for Kulik's aggressive behavior was her dog, the Russian Toy Terrier. The woman said that a few days before the conflict, someone called the family at 12 am and knocked on the door, demanding to “calm down the dog”, which, according to the victim, did not bark that night.

Kulik called the victims separatists because they speak in Russian, claimed that he did not understand them and threatened to summon the SBU to them. According to the neighbors, the “bishop” of the OCU is an arrogant conflict person who abuses alcohol. The victim also said that she had sent the video of the incident to the assistant of the “Metropolitan” (this is probably about the head of the OCU, Epiphany Dumenko), in the hope that “sensitization” will be done in relation to Kulik. In addition, she filed a complaint with the police, where a criminal case was opened against the “bishop” under Article 125 “for causing minor bodily harm with the possibility of requalification”.

When the journalist asked whether the “bishop” apologized later, the victim replied negatively: “No, he doesn’t approach us and doesn’t come in.”

This story could be chalked off as an isolated incident. But the whole problem is that beatings, violence, aggression and malice are a systemic phenomenon within the OCU, as evidenced by numerous facts. Let's refer to some of them.

How the OCU understands "love for your neighbor"

Adrian Kulik is known not only for his ability to beat women and for his half-naked selfies, but also for his narratives marked by inexplicable malice towards fellow citizens. For example, he believes that “Everyone who lives in Ukraine and does not love it had better attach a plastic number to their ears, as it is done with rootless dogs, so that the Ukrainians can see who they deal with."

He also labels a huge number of our citizens as “enemies of Ukraine”, who, in his opinion, have a “Russian soul”: “Look: the state is the body, and the Church is the soul. Therefore, if the body and soul are Ukrainian, then this is a normal, integral person. If the soul is someone else's – Russian or other people, and the body is Ukrainian – this is a direct path to schizophrenia." The concept is ambiguous, but it is quite possible that by beating his neighbor with his fists, Kulik tried to bring it to life, to achieve the “integrity” he speaks of, viz. to knock out the “Russian soul” from a woman and replace it with a “Ukrainian” one.

However, Kulik is not alone among the boxers-“bishops” of the OCU.

On December 6, 2018, literally a month before the Tomos and joining the OCU, the "bishop" of the UAOC Taras (Tikhon) Petraniuk got involved in a brawl with the parishioners of this church and its rector Ioann Boyko in the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Vyniatyntsi, Ternopil region. According to the parishioners, "Vladyka" Tikhon pushed the "priest" into the altar, hitting him in the chest. The victim said that the "bishop" had torn off the priestly cross from him, hit him and promised to kill him. As a result of the scuffle with "Vladyka", Ioann Boyko was hospitalized having suffered from head and chest injuries. Then the representatives of the newly created OCU managed to cover up the incident – the granting of the Tomos, "council" and "unification" actually neutralized interest in the conflict. Today Tikhon is a quite respectable and authoritative "hierarch" of this structure, a friend of the ex-Metropolitan of the UOC Alexander Drabinko and the notorious Kulik.

Another “hierarch” of the OCU, Afanasy Shkurupiy, referred to the believers of the UOC as “cattle”, and urged that their cross processions “be violently dispersed so that there is no longer a desire to act on the side of the enemy. However, there is no one – all the power and law enforcement structures are on the side of these Little Russian nits."

Another well-known "Metropolitan" of the OCU, Mikhail Zinkevich, keeps dogs in the courtyard of the church, which brutally bit a woman. According to Volyn Chas outlet, several people have already become victims of dog attacks on the territory of the OCU Cathedral in Lutsk, but the facts are being hidden by the direction of the leadership of the “diocese”. Also, local ecologists have repeatedly reported about animals torn to pieces by the dogs of the "bishop", which are simply thrown into garbage containers near Zinkevich's residence.

At the same time, it is quite obvious that such conduct of the top echelon of the OCU cannot remain unnoticed by the lower one. For example, here is the statement of the “priest” of the OCU Alexander Dediukhin that representatives of the unrecognized DPR and LPR, citizens of Ukraine, by the way, are “bio-waste”: “I’ve read about the bio-waste’s inspection of Ukrainian positions. Holy crap!"

Another “priest” of the OCU, Mikhail Zubkovich, believes that “real Ukrainians should not tolerate Russian henchmen in Ukrainian thrones or Ukrainian traitors in parishes,” but “root them up so that there is not even their spirit in the Holy Ukrainian land.”

And here are the words of the “cleric” of this structure, Petro Sokolovsky, addressed to the priest of the UOC Pavel Bely: “Listen, Pavel Bely, don't act too much on our land, otherwise you will no longer be white (the priest’s last name Bely means “white” – Trans.) once you are buried in the Ukrainian black earth soil.”

In this context, is it any wonder that the “priests” of the OCU were detained by law enforcement agencies on bribes and fraud, on sales of arms and positions? Is it any wonder that their children convert to Islam and threaten the believers of the UOC with jihad? Given all of the above (and this, as you might guess, is only a small part), this is definitely small wonder. Therefore, when we saw the “bishop” of the Phanar-created structure beating up a woman, we were not amazed by anything.

Another thing is surprising – how much the representatives of the Dumenko structure are hypocritical when they say that their "church" is open to the people, that they are "custodians" of the religious and interfaith peace in Ukraine. For example, the words of Epiphany Dumenko: "Preserving interfaith peace in Ukraine, preventing the incitement of hostility and confrontation on religious grounds is an important task for our Church, which, being the largest religious association, has a corresponding duty to society." He also claims that all the so-called "transitions" from the UOC to the OCU were carried out "calmly, peacefully and with love."

Could it be all about "love" that the representatives of the OCU “revealed” to the believers of the UOC, when they used tear gas, smashed the UOC believers’ heads, beat them with brass knuckles, bats, fittings, sticks, fists in Mykolayiv, Ptycha, Bogorodchany, Berestia, Gnezdychno, Galuzyntsi, Rakov Les, Novozhyvotiv, Mashcha and dozens of other settlements in Ukraine.

Let us undrscore that none of the leaders of the OCU has ever even apologized for what is happening! But can Dumenko and Co apologize if the head of Phanar personally supports the seizure of the UOC temples by force?

For example, the official website of the Chernivtsi diocese of the OCU contains an "appeal" to its members, who participated in the storming of the UOC church in the village of Mykhalcha on December 12, 2020 not to give up and "not to retreat from the holy cause", because otherwise they will be ashamed in front of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who "tirelessly fights for our cause".

All the above offers an obvious conclusion that we should not be surprised at all when ordinary OCU members beat the parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – women, old people and so on. After all, the "bishops" personally set an example for them, some with words, others with their behavior, and still others with their tacit consent.

Therefore, in the case of Kulik, no one wants to apologize. First of all, the "boxer" himself. However, the beating of a defenseless woman by the "hierarch" of the OCU is very difficult to overlook, and at least some kind of reaction should follow. What will it be?

Will Kulik become a "scapegoat"?

The official spokesman of the OCU, Eustratiy Zoria, usually makes comments in such and similar cases. According to his standard scenario, he blames Moscow for everything. True though, in this case, someone of a smaller rank may speak out instead of Zoria so as not to attract the public eye to the scandal. Tattered arguments can be used again in this matter like "provocation of the ROC". Moreover, in the case of Kulik, everything seems to be going very "smoothly" for the OCU – the injured are Russian-speaking, the dog is a Russian Toy Terrier (most likely, it barked in Russian too), and everything happened in Anna Akhmatova Street (a Russian poetess). Therefore, we can expect the version that the incident was planned by the FSB, Kulik would be provoked on purpose, filmed on CCTV cameras, and journalists would be sent to the scene. Moreover, the OCU “hierarch” would not beat the woman, but try to check if there were any eavesdropping devices she was hiding.

Everything seems to be going very "smoothly" for the OCU – the injured are Russian-speaking, the dog is a Russian Toy Terrier (most likely, it barked in Russian too), and everything happened in Anna Akhmatova Street (a Russian poetess). Therefore, we can expect the version that the incident was planned by the FSB.

True though, we presume another scenario – a demonstrative flogging of Kulik. The fact is that this "bishop" is not particularly admired by the leadership of the OCU (we mean Dumenko and Zoria). Judge for yourself – he was ordained a deacon by Ioann Bodnarchuk (Filaret's companion in the creation of schism), then a priest – by the head of the Orthodox Church of America, Peter (L'Huillier), then he joined the schismatics from the UAOC-K with "consecration" for the bishop’s choir of the New-York and New England diocese; from there he was admitted in the same rank to the UAOC in 2004, served as a “bishop” of Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Odesa, Khmelnytsky till February 3, 2011, when the "bishops' council" of the UAOC decided to "consecrate" Kulik again (i.e. after 7 years of his “episcopal ministry” !!!).

On May 13, 2013, "bishop" Adrian Kulik moved to the UOC-KP, but as he had no see, he worked as a  rector of the church of St. George the Victorious in Khmelnytsky. Only in 2019, being a member of the OCU, he received the title "of Shepetivka". In other words, even as part of the newly created structure, this “bishop” essentially has neither his own see nor his own flock, which means he can be "discarded". We emphasize once again that the ban of Kulik, if it follows, will not be the result of his actions, i.e. the beating of the woman or statements about the "marking" of Ukrainians, but solely because the OCU will see an excellent handle to get rid of the dead weight.

In addition, there is a possibility that a real show will be created for the general public in order to prove how the guilty are punished in the most "democratic" and "advanced" church (the emphasis will be made on the “UOC being far from such a standard of democracy”, of course!) ... Thus, having eliminated Kulik, they will kill two birds with one stone, viz. they will hype their "openness" and remove the unwanted element.

Of course, it can be assumed that the Dumenko’s structure will decide to remain silent about what happened in the hope that everything will be quickly forgotten. But even so, questions will still remain. And sooner or later it will be necessary to answer them.

Because it is completely unacceptable to beat not only women, but anyone in general, all the more so for a person who considers himself a Christian.

When Dumenko or someone else from the OCU begins to talk again about love for one's neighbor, just show him what exactly these people mean by “love”.

Another thing is important. Not being a Church, the OCU is nevertheless associated with the Church in the minds of many of our fellow citizens, and the incident with Adrian Kulik will only help them open their eyes to the true nature of this “religious organization”. Perhaps, at least a certain number of people will realize that the structure created by Phanar has nothing in common with either Christ or the Gospel.

And when Dumenko or one of the OCU representatives begins to talk again about love for one's neighbor, just show him what exactly these people mean by “love”.

After all, Christ said that "by their fruit you will recognize them."