Bila Tserkva. A deputy priest of the OCU seized Mazepa's St. Nicholas Church by entering through a window

Address: 10 Mlynivska (Haharina) Street, Bila Tserkva, Kyiv Region, 09100

The St. Nicholas Church of the Bila Tserkva Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, founded in 1706 with the participation of Hetman Ivan Mazepa, is the oldest stone church in the city and is protected by the state as a heritage site.

On August 2, 2023, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine seized the Holy St. Nicholas Church of the UOC.
A deputy of the Bila Tserkva City Council and secretary of the Bila Tserkva Eparchy of the OCU, Mykola Hopainych, reported on Facebook that the raiders had entered the UOC church through a small window:

“Today we climbed through the window and are now trying to open this shrine so that everyone can enter here,” Hopainych said.

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The invader complained that the priests of the UOC strengthened the door from the inside against the seizure, having the sad experience of the Transfiguration Cathedral captured by the OCU, which is in the same yard. But the deputy priest of the OCU promises to soon remove the obstacle. Judging by the photographs posted by the deputy-cleric of the OCU, the raiders were forced to break down the doors of the ancient church.

Hopainych appeared untroubled by the fact that he simultaneously violated several provisions of criminal law, including the breach of the protected status of a historic monument. All of this took place amid rhetoric about “love for antiquity” and reverence for Hetman Mazepa, who had taken part in the church’s construction.

St. Nicholas Church is located near the Transfiguration Cathedral, which Hopainych and his group, apparently members of the territorial defense, seized on July 10, 2023. At that time, several “priests” used a sledgehammer, a crowbar, an angle grinder, and a chainsaw to destroy the cathedral’s doors, while the police protected them from the cathedral’s parishioners and the UOC eparchy’s clergy.