Police intervened only when the radicals began beating believers, - the UOC (VIDEO)

In Nikolaev, after a clash with radicals who came to dismantle the foundation of the temple, several parishioners of the UOC went to hospital. According to a UOJ source, the women took a record of bodily injuries incurred as a result of battery and wrote a statement to the police.

The officials of the Nikolaev diocese commented on the incident: "The persons who arrived at the construction site, some of whom wearing balaclavas, spoiled the property of the community. They also allowed themselves insults, slander and the use of brute physical force against their fellow citizens, including against senior women. Their actions were recorded on video and published on the Internet. Police officers did not interfere with property damage. The security guards intervened only when parishioners began to protect it from destruction, and the believers were physically offended."

The activists explained their actions to destroy the basement of the UOC church by enforcing the decision of the Nikolaev Korabelny District Court No. 488/3005 of August 18, 2017, according to which any construction work on this territory is prohibited.

The Information and Education Department of the Nikolaev diocese notes:

1. The execution of the court’s ruling is entrusted to the Korabelny Department of the State Executive Service of the Nikolaev Korabelny District Department of Justice in the Nikolaev region, and not to "activists" who acted in an unlawfully, criminal way.
2. Ruling No. 488/3005 of 18/08/2017 was issued by the court without the participation of the defendant, the religious community of the UOC. Moreover, the community was not invited to refer to the ruling. Bogdan Chornenkiy, the rector of the church, learned about the existence of a judicial ban on construction only on September 4 from the media.
3. On his own initiative on 4 September, the rector himself visited the court and officially received the ruling. After this, the community stopped construction work. The preservation of the object was being carried out - in the excavated trenches a formwork was installed to prevent land falling and destruction of the trenches.
4. On March 17, 2016, by the decision of the Nikolaev City Council No. 3/39, a land management plan was approved for changing the purpose of the land plot and allocating 5,000 sq. m. for the construction of the temple. Having obtained all the necessary permits, the community headed by the rector Archpriest Bogdan Chornenkiy started construction.

The UOJ is following the developments.