On the morning of Thursday, March 7th, the press service of the Chernovtsi and Bukovina diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) reported on his Facebook page that representatives of the schismatic structure created by Poroshenko in a desperate attempt to win votes, the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine“ (OCU), started to capture another temple of the canonical UOC-MP. This time the temple in honour of Archangel Michael in the village of Berezhnitsa of the Vizhnitsky district of the Chernovtsi region became their target.
The storm began at about 7-8 a.m. on the territory of the temple – having forced the lock and broken the gate, about 100 supporters of the OCU rushed inside. It is noted that 80% of them were not local residents. three priests of the OCU were also involved: Nikolay Zozulya (village of Miliyevo), Aleksandr Fushtey (village of Kibaki), and Petro Moroz.
They tried to pull off the clerical hat of the priest of the UOC-MP Father Konstantin, who tried to prevent the capture. He stood at the entrance of the temple, the parishioners of the UOC-MP continued to pray standing in the closed temple.
Also, during this same morning the head of the village of Banilov arrived at the scene, and activists of the OCU let him enter the territory near the temple. After this the priests of the UOC-MP also started to come to Berezhnitsa, but representatives of the OCU did not let both them and believers of the UOC-MP enter the territory of the temple. A prayer then began at the church gate. The schismatic aggressors demanded from representatives of the UOC-MP to either introduce alternating church services or to seal the temple off so that nobody holds services.
It is also noted that during an emergency meeting of the Banilov Village Council on March 6th, its chairman Vasily Solomko declared that solving jurisdictional issues is not within the competence of the head and deputy corps of the Village Council, therefore, in accordance with the law on local governance, no church decisions will be made during the session. The official urged to keep peace in the village, having asked people to solve everything peacefully among themselves.
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