A member of Khmelnitsky regional council has seized a canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church
May 16, 2017 – Representatives of the Kiev Patriarchate, with the help of the Khmelnitsky regional deputy V. V. Burlik from the “Svoboda” party, captured the canonical Saint-Uspensky Orthodox Church in the village of Zoryanoe. When commenting the situation, the Archpriest Mikhail Varahoba noted that the village deputy who took advantage of his institutional position to capture the church initiated the struggle in the village.
“Member of the Svoboda party, led by V. Bulik, have demanded the vacation of the church under threat of physical violence. In order to avoid vandalism and physical violence, we had to surrender the keys and to forfeit all documents for the church”, underlined the priest.
Father Mikhail has noted that V. Burlik, in addition to trying to incite the faithful of the canonical Church to join the Kiev Patriarchate, has also been involved in illegal activities.
“The deputy was also involved in collecting signatures about the “transfer” of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the Kiev Patriarchate. He didn’t even bother to await the end of the signature collect, and instead arranged for the arrival of a priest from the Kiev Patriarchate to come and become “nominated” as the village spiritual head.
He declared that the police has been contacted to open a case against deputy V. Burlik.
Sources