Cathedral in Bila Tserkva: raided by those who despise the Holy Gifts
The "priests" of the OCU broke down the doors and seized the UOC cathedral in Bila Tserkva. We offer to see how the new OCU "priest" treats the Holy Gifts in his church.
On July 10, 2023, a scandalous seizure by the “priests” of the OCU of the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church took place in Bila Tserkva.
Early in the morning, at 6 am, a group of athletic young people, with the support of special forces, entered the territory and blocked access to parishioners. Moreover, they did not even hide the fact they have nothing to do with Orthodoxy.
Raider, not letting parishioners into the territory of the cathedral: "You’re mistaking me for someone else because I'm a Protestant."
Parishioner of the cathedral: “So, Protestant, go to your Protestant church, why are you seizing our cathedral?”
Two raiders kept breaking open the side doors to the cathedral for three hours – first with a grinder, then with a sledgehammer and a crowbar. Against the parishioners, who tried to break into the territory and stop the seizure, the police used tear gas.
The church raid was led by the "priest" and at the same time the deputy of the Bila Tserkva city council Mykola Hopainych. This was his second attempt of assault.
The first was organized by him on July 4th late at night. The same group of athletic young men climbed over the fence and tried to force the doors open. But then they were prevented by parishioners and the police, who were still fulfilling the law. On July 10, the police were already completely on the side of the bandits. The temple was taken over. Not just captured. It was prepared for the speaker of the OCU, Yevstratiy Zoria, whom Dumenko recently appointed bishop of Bila Tserkva.
Zoria never served in Bila Tserkva, he does not have a flock here. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, on the contrary, has hundreds of parishioners in the cathedral. Now they have to serve on the street, near the fence of their own church, where they have been praying for 35 years. Many for a lifetime. For them, this is a shrine, the loss of which is a tragedy.
Let's see how the OCU treats this shrine.
Can a priest knock down the doors to a temple with a sledgehammer? Any person associated with Orthodoxy will say that this is impossible. And will be wrong. Andriy Misko, the “priest” of the OCU from the village of Stavyshche, turned out to be the main “safecracker”. The local clergy Maxym Matviychuk, Mykhailo Krechkovsky, and other wards of OCU spokesperson assisted him. It was due to their efforts that the doors of the temple were virtually destroyed.
But the main thing is not what you do, but how the media will cover it. Hopainych lets a girl from UOC-hater TSN into the altar room, so that she films everything correctly and creates the picture he needs. And only the indignation of believers and priests of the UOC made him lead the girl out of the sacristy, which is practically part of the altar space.
Soon, photos of women appeared on social networks, who cleaned the consequences of the break-in in the cathedral. Pay attention to their look. Also, one of the cleaners enters the very sacristy, visited earlier by the TSN correspondent. Judging by their overall attitude to the shrine, these females might as well clean the altar.
All this already speaks quite clearly how the OCU treats shrines. But the main thing is ahead. On Facebook, they showed a fragment of the service of the organizer of the seizure of the UOC cathedral, “priest”-deputy Mykola Hopainych, in now his Intercession Church of Bila Tserkva on February 26, 2023.
What's going on here? Hopainych comes out to give communion to a three-year-old child. The boy does not want to take communion. Then the “priest”-deputy first offers him a prosphora and a drink. The boy drinks water and throws the plastic glass into the Cup. What does Hopainych do? He reaches into the Cup, takes out the glass and puts it on the table. The sexton first moved this glass to the side and then poured water into it and gave it to the other communicants to drink.
Try dipping a glass in wine. What will happen? On its walls, there will definitely be streaks and drops that will drain and fall down.
Surely, there were such drops on the bottom and walls of this glass. They fell first on the table, then on the hands of the people who drank from it. It is very likely that drops fell from it onto the floor too. Then this glass, along with the rest, was placed on a tray to be washed.
Incredibly, neither Hopainych nor anyone else in the temple cared about this at all.
Please note that the "priest" of the OCU comes out to administer communion even without a plat and assistants. But how is this possible? After all, when children do not want to take communion, they turn away, fend off the communion spoon, and the risk that they will spill the Blood of Christ on the floor is simply enormous.
There is nothing higher than the Blood and Body of Christ. This is the greatest value in the entire universe. Does the OCU know about this? Certainly.
In December 2022, a tragic incident occurred at the liturgy of the UOC in the Refectory Church of the Kyiv Caves Lavra. One of the bishops became ill and pushed Metropolitan Onuphry, who was holding the Chalice. Part of the Holy Gifts splashed out on the Primate. Then this caused rejoicing in the camp of the "patriotic" media and among the members of the OCU.
Everyone vied with each other quoting the ancient canonical work, according to which “if the Divine Blood is shed, due to the negligence of the serving priest, he will sin mortally.”
This was also quoted by Yevstratiy Zoria, who devoted three whole publications on his Facebook to this case. In his opinion, Metropolitan Onuphry is definitely a sinner: “The Service Book interprets every such event as a sin. Getting used to such things is definitely not able to normalize them."
The shedding of the Holy Gifts occurred in many churches despite all the precautions and reverence of the clergy. However, each such case is a tragedy. Exceptional measures, which are undoubtedly implemented in the Church, are prescribed when shedding at least a drop of the Gifts. For example, when one drop fell on the floor in the Kamyanets-Podilsky Cathedral, the priest lay down and carefully licked everything with his tongue. Moreover, this tile was taken out from the floor, put in an unassailable place, and replaced with a new one. Do we see at least something similar from Hopainych in the Intercession Church of the OCU? Unfortunately no.
In the service book, the shedding of the Holy Gifts is imputed to the priest as a sin only if it happens "through negligence." So if Zoria called Metropolitan Onuphry a sinner, who was pushed by the unconscious hierarch, then how should he regard Hopainych's behavior? Did he say a single word on this incident? of course, he didn’t. And the problem here is not punishment.
By the canonical guidelines, if the shedding of Blood happens through negligence, then the priest must "weep earnestly".
The worst thing is that Hopainych not only was not going to weep, he did not attach any importance to this tragedy at all. He didn't even view the situation as extraordinary.
What follows from this? Only one thing.
Hopainych does not consider the wine and bread in his temple to be the Blood and Body of Christ. He is not alone. For example, several years ago, his Kherson colleague Serhiy Chudinovych yawned, looked bored and picked his nose standing in front of the Holy Gifts in his own live broadcast from the church.
Be that as it may, the cathedral was taken away from the Bila Tserkva believers. Now Hopainych and Zoria are the new owners here. Will they change their attitudes in this temple? Will they realize that it is impossible to take away the people’s shrines by force, it is impossible to lie and manipulate? Will they understand that it is unacceptable to treat the Holy Gifts as simply bread and wine? Or do they still feel that in their temples, this is just ordinary bread and wine?
