The ‘Right Sector’ captured an Orthodox church in the Cherkassk region
February 12, 2015. The Right Sector captured a church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) in the Cherkassk region (Ukraine). The clergy of the church was forced to change their jurisdiction from the Moscow Patriarchate to the Kiev Patriarchate as reports the UOC MP website.
The church was surrounded and anyone from the parish was not. ‘After the liturgy, a group of men in camouflage uniform with arm-signs of the “Right Sector” surrounded the church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the village of Bolshaya Sevastyanovka (Khristinovsky district, Cherkassk Region) and did not allow to anyone to enter in it.
According to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the illegal capture was anticipated by a so-called popular assembly “veche” (traditional democratic meeting in Slavic tribes), where people who have nothing in common with the parish directly insulted believers of the UOC MP. Moreover, the combatants of the “Right Sector” kicked out archpriest Vasily Mikhanchuk from the meeting and did not let him express his view of the situation.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate also mentions that organizers of the ‘veche’ also threatened the local priest and forced him to change the jurisdiction.
The local authorities pretend that everything is going on legally. The village council did not do anything to prevent the illegal actions of the non-resident radicals and so let create one more place of a religious tension.