Nuyno believers block the road and appeal to authorities: Stop lawlessness

The action of protest on the road. Photo: Facebook

On July 3, 2019, representatives of the UOC religious community in the village of Nuyno, Volyn region, blocked the village road in order to draw the attention of the authorities to the flagrant violation of their constitutional rights.

“We agreed, filed an application with the district administration, the police chief, that we would hold a peaceful rally, 100 meters from the place where you can drive around. Written applications were submitted, the head was informed orally,” Liudmila, one of the participants in the prayer standing, told the UOJ correspondent.

According to her, prayer standing on the road began at 9 am and lasted for about 3 hours, an ambulance car, scheduled buses and 5 cars passed every hour.

In such a way, the UOC parishioners tried to draw the attention of the authorities and the public to the lawlessness that is happening in the village: the activists of the OCU took over both the Holy Transfiguration Church and the Holy Protection Church of the UOC, and now there is no place for people to pray. Believers turned to the village head and law enforcement agencies, but their numerous appeals did not cause an adequate response from the officials and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“We had guests from Cyprus, we even asked the deputies to help. One of our parishioners wrote two weeks ago on Facebook and to Zelensky, and our deputy Irina Konstankevich (the Verkhovna Rada deputy in the 23 electoral district; former deputy of Lutsk city council – Ed.), but everyone is silent. We don’t even know if they have read our messages,” Liudmila told the UOJ correspondent.

According to eyewitnesses, the action took place peacefully, but later the participants of the prayer standing were approached by OCU activists on bicycles, who shouted insults at the women.

"They shouted at us: “Shameless! They want to go to Moscow!" and call us "bitches of Moscow". They even threatened to evict us from the village,” said one of the parishioners of the canonical Church.

After some time, a young man from Kamen-Kashirska, who arrived by car with his mother, joined the OCU supporters. One of the UOC parishioners said that he threw himself on the participants of the prayer standing, even tore the poster out of their hands and tried to tear it off.

“The OCU took one temple, are grabbing the second one! Where are our rights?”,“ Fear of sin!” – such inscriptions on protest signs outraged the supporter of the newly created religious organization.

Representatives of the UOC community noted that law enforcement officers defended them from aggressive opponents during the prayer standing. Some of the drivers passing by approached the participants of the peaceful rally with sympathetic words, tried to support and comfort the believers.

But the village head did not come out to the UOC parishioners, and now members of the religious community intend to personally visit the people's deputy Irina Konstankevich and ask her to protect their constitutional rights.

We recall that even during the illegal voting of the territorial community of the village of Nuyno for the “transfer” to the OCU, which took place on February 24, 2019, out of 270 people 63 voted in support of the canonical Church. Believers of the UOC tried to resolve the conflict peacefully and gave a well-equipped large Holy Transfiguration Church in the center of the village to supporters of the OCU. However, the adherents of the new church structure took away the second temple, the Holy Protection Church, a temple in which the authorities officially allowed the UOC parishioners to pray, for which they even issued appropriate papers. On June 15, 2019, the OCU activists cut the locks on the Holy Protection Church they seized, and the rural precinct did not initiate a criminal case, as he considered the incident "not serious". People have nowhere to pray, they are now forced to hold services in a private house, but believers there often become ill, and children brought to the Communion even faint.

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