Rector of Yurkivtsi church: Fake about transfer to OCU is information war

Rector of the Church of Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki in Yurkivtsi, Archpriest Petro Kostiuk, said that Ukrainian media reports about his community's alleged "transfer" to the OCU were a fake created by Dumenko's supporters.

"Our community voted in the temple for faithfulness to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church led by his Beatitude Onuphry back on October 14. And the fact that a bunch of people held their gathering in favour of the OCU – this is illegal, they have nothing to do with our community".

As reported, on October 22, 2022, in the village of Yurkivtsi, Chernivtsi region, an illegal vote was held to change the church's jurisdictional subordination to the OCU at a meeting of the territorial community.

Immediately after the meeting, supporters of the OCU circulated photos and videos of numerous UOC parishioners who attended the meeting, whom Dumenko's supporters posed as "their own". 

"We also came to this 'meeting', but only to explain to people that the real community did not go anywhere, that they have no right to decide something instead of us. There were about a hundred of our parishioners and about 60-70 of them. They did not let me speak for a long time, but when I started to speak, I gave them (supporters of the OCU – Ed.) all the documents: the minutes of the community meeting, signatures of the parishioners, applications, and so on. Then the parishioners and I began to serve a moleben for peace in Ukraine and for our soldiers, and then the very photos that show that there were many people at the meeting were taken. Yes, there are a lot of people, but they are all parishioners of the UOC," Father Petro told the UOJ. 

The priest called the fake transfer of the UOC community an information war, in which, according to him, the authorities are also involved, because a representative of the regional administration for a long time did not want to accept the minutes of the meeting, during which the parishioners testified their loyalty to the UOC and His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, from the community. 

"An official of the Regional State Administration, Oleksandr Shevchenko, did not accept documents from us for several days because he was waiting for meeting minutes on the transfer from the OCU, however, we did give the documents and received a receipt for their acceptance," the rector of the Yurkivtsi church added. 

The rector also said that after a Sunday liturgy, on October 23, 2022, the parishioners recorded a video message in which they reaffirmed their intention to remain in the bosom of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. 

As reported, the UOC community in Yurkivtsi denied the fake transfer to the OCU.

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