30.07.2019, Kiev.
Members of the newly-established Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) attempted to seize the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God in the village of Susval in Volyn region, TASS reported on July 22.
During a church service devoted to the anniversary of the Christianization of Russia on July 28, unidentified men led by OCU clergymen entered the church of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in order to stop the ceremony and to initiate the seizure of the church.
According to the UOC, the attackers blocked the entrance, but the citizens in the church managed to resolve the conflict. The UOC noted that the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine is trying to place this church under the management of the newly-established OCU, thus provoking conflicts between the Orthodox churches.
The OCU was established in late 2018 upon an initiative of the former president of Ukraine Pyotr Poroshenko in order to split the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Russian one. Over the past half a year, members of the OCU seized about UOC 500 churches, and they expressed their intention to continue.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
