Seizures of temples. How it was: Belogorodka

The Belogorodka community of the UOC has built a new church instead of the one taken by the schismatics

The UOJ continues a series of retrospective materials on how churches of the UOC have been seized in the country. In the previous material, we told you about the raider seizure in vlg. Sudobichi. This time we are talking about vlg. Belogorodka in the Dubno district of the Rovno region.

The rector of the St. Luke parish of the UOC, Protopriest Vitaly Chaika, believes that the confrontation in the village began after he had refused to give communion to a child baptized in the Kiev Patriarchate. Part of the villagers stopped attending worship services and eventually came to say that the church should be transferred to another jurisdiction.

A month before the incident, Protopriest Vitaly Chaika submitted all necessary documents to the village council to privatize the church to the religious community of the village. The head of the village took advantage of a backlash in Belogorodka and denied the priest the privatization of the religious structure, then began to incite the villagers by talking about the fact that the father wanted to appropriate a temple, and allowed to hold a referendum on the change of jurisdiction, which contradicts the current legislation of Ukraine.

"On September 29, 2014, after an unauthorized referendum, the supporters of the UOC KP from the district centre came to the church: Dvorzhik Roman Andreevich, the deputy chief of the Dubno military unit, representatives of the radical association 'Right Sector', as well as soldiers from the local military unit who carried batons and bats," says Protopriest Vitaly Chaika. "At first they began threatening me and my family, said that they would take me to the ATO zone, burn the car, and take my wife and children away in an unknown direction if I did not move out of the church house in which the new rector of the UOC KP should live. And then they began grabbing the temple, pushing aside and beating up my parishioners."

According to eyewitnesses, in total, about 500 local residents, mostly men, took part in the raid attack on the church. The police did not react to the telephone request of the rector to send aid.

On September 30, 2014, schismatics as owners occupied the church of Belogorodka. Father Vitaly Chaika was forced to move to a neighbouring village to his wife's parents after another threat from supporters of the UOC KP.

"One parishioner offered a room in her house for worship services," says Father Vitaly. "That's where we moved to serve. At first, people were reluctant to go there, hesitated, however, the church choir with the regent all remained, and the rest of the parishioners slowly were coming."

Almost a year the believers of the UOC tried to restore justice and reported the offence to the Prosecutor's Office, the SBU, regional and district administrations, but received letters with responses that they did not see signs of a crime in the committed actions and had no right to interfere in the activities of religious organizations, as this should be decided by the community.

In 2016, despite the resistance of local officials and the blocking of the production of necessary documentation for the construction of the church, Belogorodka believers prayerfully celebrated a housewarming in the new church.

In two years of the interfaith dispute, the number of parishioners of the canonical Church has increased significantly. According to the villagers, those who were taking over the church together with supporters of the Kiev Patriarchate two years ago, return to the UOC bosom. "I’m rarely surprised in this life," says Protopriest Vitaly Chaika, "but the transition of a young school-age boy from the Kiev Patriarchate to the bosom of the canonical Church was a complete surprise. Today this young man is my assistant at the altar, comes every Sunday, despite the fact that his parents are members of the schismatics."

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