"Self-defense of Maidan" requires investigating the visit of Cypriot priests

The public organization "Free Men of Ternopil – Self-Defense of Maidan" accused the Orthodox Church Cyprus of violating the law of Ukraine. Representatives of the organization wrote about this on their Facebook page.

"On July 25, 2017, foreign religious figures, while in the village of Kinakhovtsy, performed a religious ritual in a private house ("served a moleben"), and then incited local residents to continue the so-called "inter-faith struggle" with fellow villagers who moved to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, at the same time humiliating the latter on the basis of personal non-recognition of the said denomination", the "Self-Defense" report says. "Such actions of foreign religious figures caused social tension in the village of Kinakhovtsy, as local residents consider them an attempt to incite religious hatred in the village, which was suspended three months before the arrival of Cypriot citizens."

"Free People of Ternopil" saw a "hand of Moscow" in the visit of the Cypriot clerics to the village. According to the representatives of the public organization, they have already applied to the Ternopil SA, and now they intend to write an appeal to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

"We demand that the SBU in the Ternopil region conduct an investigation into the violation of Part 4 of Article 24 of the Law of Ukraine "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations" by the representatives of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus and make a public report on the results of the investigation," wrote the "Free People of Ternopil".

On May 15, 2017, after cutting the locks of the temple doors, representatives of the UOC-KP broke into the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul’s Church, belonging to the UOC parish, and seized it. Since that time, supporters of the Kyiv Patriarchate, in whose favour the regional authorities re-registered the statute of the community of the canonical Church, have gathered in the Orthodox church. Believers of the UOC went to pray in a private house. Cases of clashes at the church, schemes with the statute and a forgery of the "protocol of the parish meeting" are currently under investigation.