Police Tears Down Tent Church of UOC-Moscow Patriarchate and Victims Complain to Patriarch Kirill

At 3:10 a.m. on May 15, the police used tear gas to drive away a prayer group that stood in front of the Supreme Council demanding a right to tax office registration by name only, reported the victims of the rout to religion.in.ua.

The police also tore down the tent chapel of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), which had stood in the park in front of the parliament for six years.

The tent chapel was erected in front of the parliament in 2005, when as a result of a conflict in the village of Rokhmaniv, Ternopil Oblast, part of the parish transferred to the Kyivan Patriarchate and assumed the only village church and the other part led by its senior priest, Oleh Sirko, remained faithful to the UOC-MP and came to Kyiv to seek justice.  

For a long time, the chapel of Fr. Oleh served as one of the key centers of “political Orthodoxy.” Representatives of the Orthodox brotherhoods of the UOC-MP used to gather here to discuss their activity. 

According to the victims, during the pogrom, “icons were thrown out, the nearby tent Church of St. Oleksandr Nevskyi was dismantled and desecrated. Everything was demolished by a bulldozer and the parishioners’ shrines were crushed into the ground and there is an even surface now in the place of the church, which has been covered with artificial turf. It is an awful sacrilege, which reminds one of the 30s of the last century when destruction of churches, persecutions of believers was part of the state policy,” say the victims.
  
The dismantling began at night and the dispersal continued in the morning. According to an eye witness, all the active participants of the defense of the tents were transported somewhere. They twisted people’s arms and prevented them from praying. Priests and parishioners lay down in front of the vehicles but were dispersed by force. 

The parish priest of the tent church, which was destroyed by the authorities, Fr. Oleh Sirko reported to the “Russ People’s Line” that Patriarch Kirill during his visit blessed him for further service in the church. “I do not know whose decision it was to demolish the tent church. The police did not explain anything, they brought vehicles and began to break, clean and dump quickly. Some believers who tried to prevent the tearing down of the church were detained. One of them was the head of the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods of Ukraine, Valentyn Lukiianyk. Patriarch Kirill has already been informed of what happened – I reported to Moscow about the situation,” said Fr. Oleh to the correspondent of the Russian publication. 
  
The victims are calling all the Orthodox to protest the “sacrilege undertaking of the Ukrainian authorities.”
  
Interfax-Religion reports with reference to the local authorities that the cause of the destruction was “unsanitary conditions.”