Titushky raiders brought into famous Kruty village, disrupt community transition to OCU

In the famous village of Kruty, Nizhyn district of Chernihiv region, the thugs – ‘titushkas’ - brought by representatives of the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate have disrupted the parish community meeting, which should have adopted decision on the transfer of the local St. Michael's Church to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Journalist Rostyslav Martynyuk wrote about it on his Facebook page, according to Novynarnya.

“Today, over 50 visiting bandits, led by about 20 priests of the Moscow Patriarchate have brutally disrupted (for the second time) a parish meeting in the famous village of Kruty, Nizhyn district of Chernihiv region. The purpose of the meeting, which brought together more than 200 residents of Kruty, was to change affiliation to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and to leave the jurisdiction of the ROC,” the journalist reports.

He has cited eyewitnesses who said that “the bandits brought from Kyiv in the morning have seized the premises where the meeting was meant to be held. And the Nizhyn police actually facilitated it.”

Subsequently, the Russian-speaking young sportsmen blocked the entrance, “and those village residents who tried to get into their own building, were simply dumped from the steps to the ground.”

"The vicious bullying of Kruty residents was accompanied by hooting of hysterical women who were also brought there from outside. They were inspired by the mobilized Moscow priests, brought to Kruty from everywhere on this day: Nizhyn, Borzny, Pryluky, and even Bakhmach (in particular, a ‘dean’ of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Bakhmach district was also detected among the bandits,” Martyniuk reports.

He has also noted that in Chernihiv, it is not for the first time that the priests of the Moscow Patriarchate turn to criminals to prevent the transition of communities to the OCU.

In February, the priest of St Catherine Church of the OCU in Chernihiv, the military chaplain Yevhen Orda, reported that on February 27 the community of the village of Kruty changed jurisdiction to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. According to him, the decision was approved during the villagers’ meeting.

“People were subjected to considerable pressure on the part of the Moscow-backed priests, but in Kruty there are patriotic-minded people, and two-thirds of the assembly voted for the transition to the Ukrainian Church,” he said in his comment to UNIAN, noting that the members and the priest of the community who are willing to switch to the OCU are experiencing pressure on the part of the Russian Church in Ukraine.

On May 31, the website of the 112.ua channel released a comment of the rector of St. Michael's Church of the UOC MP in Kruty, Fr Vasyl Vilkhovetsky, who stated that “scarce supporters of the OCU” in the village planned to hold a meeting on June 1 to transfer the temple to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

According to Father Vasily, on February 10, that is, before the meeting of February 27, “the Orthodox religious community [of the village] held a meeting and confirmed that the parishioners were willing to remain with the UOC-MP.”

The priest of the Moscow Patriarchte also believes “it does not exclude” support of the initiative group for transition to the OCU by the bullies and the law enforcement – “as it was the case in other villages where churches were seized”.

The commentary of the Russian Orthodox priest was extensively spread by pro-Russian and separatist media under titles styled like “a group of Ukrainian schismatics planning to take away the temple ...”