1000 days of prayer standing in defence of church in Mykhalcha

The community of the Holy Dormition Church of the UOC in Mykhalcha. Photo: facebook.com/orthobuk

November 6 marks 1000 days since the beginning of the round-the-clock prayer standing of the Holy Dormition community of the UOC of the village of Mykhalcha, Chernivtsi region, for the right to pray in their church. During this period, the believers have become closer to each other and to God, reports the press service of the Chernivtsi-Bukovyna Eparchy.

“During these 1000 days, believers of the UOC in the village of Mykhalcha have experienced ridicule and obscenities by the OCU, pressure at work, disregard by judges and government officials, sticks, tear gas spraying, insults to their children, etc. Their centuries-old temple also survived reproaches from the renovationists of the OCU, but these 1000 days have brought good fruit to the religious community: believers became closer to each other, friendlier, like one heart, loved their temple more, appreciate their ancestors more, those who preserved and transferred the temple to them and instilled love for the temple and for God,” says a message on the website of the eparchy.

It is noted that the prayer standing for the church began on the day of the Synaxis of New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Land, whose feat still inspires the UOC believers.

“Believers of the UOC in the village of Mykhalcha accepted the feat of their ancestors and for the second year have kept the purity of the faith from the Renovationists (OCU), who are more like a state project than a religious organization and from the authorities that ignore the lawlessness of the OCU supporters. Such renovations were a hundred years ago and appeared with the advent of the Soviet power and were supported by the new government; they also seduced people to betray the canonical church. The Renovationists were not persecuted by the authorities, they were not shot, they were not sent to Siberia and prisons, as they did with the true believers. But over time, renovationism as a project against the canonical Church became uninteresting for the Soviet regime and their number decreased to a minimum. Renovationists a hundred years ago were also supported by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, who did not refute their "church reforms" (married episcopate, the throne to the middle of the church, prayers in a modern language, etc.), it is worth considering what goals the Patriarchate of Constantinople pursues," the eparchy added.

As reported, attempts to seize the temple in the village of Mykhalcha on the part of the OCU has been going on for more than two years. In 2019, supporters of the OCU rammed down the ancient doors of the church; in 2020, more than a hundred masked young people with sticks and tear gas, brass knuckles and other weapons broke the doors of the forechurch with an ax.

Supporters of the OCU attempted to seal the temple of the UOC in the village of Mykhalcha.

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