Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard

13:00:09
26/07/2018

strana.ua

Ukrainian Radicals continue to block the journey of pilgrims from the Nizhyn, Chernovtsi, Rovno, and Odessa dioceses to the religious procession in Kiev on July 27th. This was reported by the Information-educational department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

They note that the owners of motor transport are forced to refuse to transport believers, being afraid of the threats of authorities and radical nationalists.

In the Nizhyn diocese (Chernigov region) representatives of “Svoboda“ threatened local transporters by saying that they will burn their buses if they transport believers of Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the religious procession to Kiev.

In Chernovtsi it was reported that at the moment pilgrims can’t find any company that will agree to transport them to Kiev, since all owners of motor transport were warned that their licenses would be revoked if they transport Ukrainian Orthodox Christians to the capital. Transporters note that the instruction to boycott the trip comes from the transport administration located in Kiev.

It is also known that there are similar problems in Rovno, Odessa, and some other dioceses of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“We have 1,000 people who are ready to travel. We started to contact transport organisations — but the first, second, and third refused us,” reported the press secretary of the Odessa diocese archpriest Sergey Lebedev. Last year the Odessa diocese was also subjected to threats and blockades in relation to the religious procession.

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