Raiders in Vinnitsa region of Ukraine hang locks on a church in which parishioners were worshipping

In the afternoon of May 30, 2020, aggressive representatives of the ‘OCU’ made another attempt to capture the church of the Holy Transfiguration of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church at the village of Luka-Meleshkovskaya, Vinnitsa region. The raiders hung a lock on the church door when parishioners were in it.

In 2019, an attempt was made to transfer the community of this church to the jurisdiction of a newly formed schismatic structure, and since that time the rector and parishioners have been regularly terrorized by the OCU activists. They conducted several raids upon the church; the provocateurs also demanded that the Sunday school of the parish be given to them. On March 16, 2019, aggressively mooded activists tried to prevent a hierarchal worship service in Luka-Meleshkovskaya, but ultimately the faithful managed to defend their church and Archbishop (now Metropolitan) Varsonofiy managed to celebrate the Divine Liturgy at which hundreds of Orthodox believers of the village worshipped. In connection with the situation around the church of the Holy Transfiguration, His Eminence Varsonofiy sent an open letter to the President of Ukraine.

Nobody was called to account for the previous attempts to capture the church at Luka-Meleshkovskaya. ‘Impunity generated a new evil’, reports the Vinnitsa diocesan press service.

For already a year now the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church community at that village have had to defend their church day and night, holding devotional watches in it. According the rector of the Parish of the Holy Transfiguration, Archpriest Vasiliy Almuhamed, on May 30, the so-called activists of the OCU came again to the church. The schismatics began calling the priest of the canonical Church bad names and did the same to the police who arrived at the spot. The raiders demanded that the church be sealed up and then threatened to hang their own lock on the church door, which they eventually did while blocking the side entrance.

The Vinnitsa diocesan officials drew the attention of law-enforcement, journalists and public officials to the OCU activists’ provocation at Luka-Meleshkovskaya, noting that another attempt at the unlawful capture of the church ‘has taken place during the quarantine in Ukraine, not only giving food for raids but also incuring a risk on the healthy believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who are ordinary Ukrainian citizens.

DECR Communication Service

With reference to the Information-Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church