Zolotonosha. OCU raiders invaded the UOC cathedral at night

Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Address: Cherkasy region, Zolotonosha city, Shevchenko St., 64.

The UOC Assumption Cathedral in Zolotonosha city was seized by a group of OCU clerics and raiders. The criminals preliminarily falsified documents for the temple, and then illegally changed the owner of the cathedral.

Police representatives provided full assistance to the criminal group, who invaded the temple at night.

On September 1, 2024, OCU cleric Roman Lychak created a Facebook page of the Assumption Cathedral community, published a photo of the church and assigned it using the «OCU» prefix.

However, the next day, apparently after social networks wrote about it, he deleted the page.

By that time, Lychak had already managed to re-register the Orthodox parish into the OCU, appointing himself as its director.

The networks wrote that in a personal conversation he warned the dean of the UOC, Archpriest Sergiy Snopok, that the clergy should take their belongings from the church on Wednesday and not even think of gathering people, threatening violence.

(Source: UOJ)

On September 2, 2024, at 10:05 p.m., supporters of the OCU seized the cathedral.

In order to prevent the UOC parishioners and clergy interfere with church raiding, the approaches to the temple were blocked by the police. The criminal actions of the raiders were led by OCU clerics, who regularly take part in the seizure of churches.

In particular, an OCU cleric Volodymyr Ridny/Pedko was present at the scene.

The religious community of the UOC, headed by their temple’s rector, remained faithful to its Church, the priest asked the parishioners not to participate in the conflict, which the representatives of the OCU were counting on.

As a result, the criminals reported on the seizure of the cathedral and, assuming that the UOC community would protest at the temple, they invited supporters of the OCU "to pray."

At the same time, an OCU priest the called the UOC believers "artists and extras of the Moscow Patriarchate."

(Source: UOJ)