RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Another Orthodox church burned in Ukraine

CHURCH DESECRATED IN SARNY DIOCESE FOR SECOND TIME IN MONTH

Ukrainian Orthodox Church, 30 November 2015

 

In the night of 30 November, an act of vandalism and robbery of a church building was committed in the church of the Holy Iveria Icon in the city of Rokitnoe in Polesye. This was reported by the Information Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, referring to the official website of the Sarny diocese.

 

Criminals broke into the church and set fire to the altar and burned the sacred antimensium, the lectern gospel, and sacred gifts, and they robbed the church treasury and set fires in another three places in the church.

 

The investigation group of the Rokitnoe department of internal affairs, which arrived at the crime scene, entered it into the unified register of pretrial investigations.

 

The Information Department of the UPTs reported earlier that on 19 November in this same city, unidentified persons desecrated and set fire to the church of the Holy Trinity. [see Vandalism blamed on Kiev patriarchate]

 

In his commentary, Metropolitan of Sarny and Polesye Anatoly called the crimes committed attacks of vandalism deliberately aimed against churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. His Eminence recalled that last year ten similar crimes against parishes of the UPTs were committed.

 

At the present time, local law enforcement agencies have not found the culprits. (tr. by PDS, posted 1 December 2015)

 

LEGOIDA: CHURCH IN ROVNO PROVINCE OF UKRAINE DELIBERATELY DESECRATED

RIA Novosti, 1 December 2015

 

The actions of the criminals in the church of the Holy Icon of Iveria in the city of Rokitnoe of Rovno province of Ukraine were described by the Moscow patriarchate as "deliberate sacrilege" because during the attack "the most holy thing that is in an Orthodox church" was damaged.

 

Unidentified persons robbed and set fire to the church on Sunday night. According to reports of the Information Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow patriarchate (UPTsMP), investigators of the district department of police of Rokitnoe recorded the incident although the culprits still have not been found.

 

"If one judges by the reports of the news media, this was not a simple robbery but deliberate blasphemy, since the antimensium and sacred gifts—the most sacred think that is in an Orthodox church--were destroyed. For this reason one may assume that the criminals were guided by hatred for the faith of Christ as such since no Christian, even if he belongs to another confession, would not even think of defiling the sacred gifts," the report quotes the chairman of the synodal Information Department of the patriarchate, Vladimir Legoida, speaking at the editorial offices of RIA Novosti.

 

The head of the Information Department noted that by such actions the criminals "maximally distance themselves from the love and forgiveness of the Creator." "No human punishment compares with the abyss of sufferings that awaits those who commit such iniquity beyond the boundaries of earthly life," Legoida noted. (tr. by PDS, posted 3 December 2015)


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