RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Ukrainian Orthodox continue to report conflict over church buildings

UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS "RIGHT SECTOR" AGAIN ATTEMPTS TO SEIZE ORTHODOX CHURCH

Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Information Department, 28 September 2015

 

In the evening of 28 September, residents of the village of Kolosov in Ternopol region became witnesses of an incident in which 6 vehicles of Right Sector with young people, accompanied by four priests of the Kiev patriarchate, drove up to the local church dedicated to the Holy Apostle John the Divine. Among the priests was one person who looked like the head of the Ternopol diocese of the so-called UPTsKP, Nestor Pisik.

 

Around 30 militants led the schismatics into the churchyard. To questions from residents of Kolosov about the purpose of the "visit," they responded coarsely and assured that within a week the church would be taken away. When one of the local woman residents tried to film on a phone all of what was happening, an armed fighter of the Right Sector took her phone away from her and destroyed the SIM card. The police did not arrive immediately in response to the peasants' summons.

 

We recall that on 21 September radicals from the Right Sector seized a church in the village of Ekaterinovka and along with militants of the Ternopol-2 battalion conducted fierce beating of believers, as the result of which more than 15 persons were injured, including women and elderly folk. Then the fighters of Right Sector walked about the houses, intimidating local residents, who wrote a statement at the police station about the beating. According to testimony of residents of Kremenets, these same radicals demanded of physicians of the Kremenets district hospital information about all the injured in the village of Ekaterinovka. Although the local police and representatives of the Ternopol provincial state administration and of culture hushed up in every way the seizure of the church and beating of peaceful residents organized by Right Sector, there is a statement on the official website of the Right Sector in which this radical grouping takes full responsibility onto itself for what happened in the village of Ekaterinovka and threatens to act by the same methods in the future. (tr. by PDS, posted 29 September 2015)


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