PRIESTS BRING "VISITING" BELIEVERS TO DISRUPT VOTING FOR TRANSFER INTO PTsU
In Vinnytsia oblast, priests of the Russian church in Ukraine prevented residents of the village of Lukashovka from conducting a parish meeting by bringing "visiting" parishioners from other villages to it.
At the assembly, people were supposed to decide which parish their church would join. Supporters of the Russian church in Ukraine brought "visiting" parishioners to the club, who disrupted the voting with a dispute. Yesterday villagers there expressed distrust for the local priest for his unwillingness to join the local church and they blocked the door to the church, Gazeta.ua reports, referring to TSN.Panok.
Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine arrived to support the local father Fedor, who does not want to join the Ukrainian local church.
"It will be as the Lord blesses. Will the parish make a decision to vote or not to assent?" he explains.
Supporters of the two churches were present in the house of culture. Several did not hide the fact that they had come from other villages.
The rector of the church of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine opposed the auditing commission. He proposed voting by show of hands.
"You saw how many people raised their hand that our church should be under the leadership of Onufrey in our village?" Father Fedor asked rhetorically after the voting.
At this the meeting closed. The rector explained that the parish will remain in the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The village youth did not hide their emotions.
"Here was a majority of people who do not live in Lukashovka who arrived. We saw them first. I think the meeting was illegitimate," Snezhana Mediana, a resident of Lukashovka remarked.
In the end, residents of Lukashovka who stayed after the meeting are voting under the protocol for uniting with the Ukrainian local church.
"There has still been no meeting. They created a mess in order to disrupt the meeting. All decisions will be relayed to the Department for Religious Affairs of the oblast administration," the secretary of the Vinnytsia diocese of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Vladislav Demchenko, explained.
Both sides have already declared that they do not intend simply to surrender the church and its property. Therefore the two parishes have begun preparing for court cases. (tr. by PDS, posted 14 January 2019)
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