Priests transported in cages and thrown out of churches - how Ukrainian authorities deal with clergy

If you did not leave with our military, then you were waiting for the Russian world. And since you stayed, then now you are separatists, mercenaries, agents. This is how the rector of the Holy Kazan Church in the Gorlovka diocese in the village of Yarovaya (DPR), Archpriest Nikolai, began his story about the atrocities of Ukrainian militants against clergy.

On September 18, the rector of the church, as always, came to the service on Sunday, but it did not take place - in the morning, Ukrainian soldiers came to the church and took Archpriest Nikolai, allegedly for a talk, promising that they would return him later. However, he returned to service from the pretrial detention center only five months later, thanks to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill.

But the man has been a simple priest for 32 years. He was born and raised in the village where he serves.

Abbess of the Grodno Holy Nativity of the Mother of God Convent, Abbess Gavriila: "The SBU is working there now. Say a word - and you will be immediately taken away to prison. The Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine is in prison, being tortured. They tortured him in the summer: the heat was plus 40 degrees, and they transported him in a cage from Dnepropetrovsk to Slavyansk for 16-18 hours. They did not give him water or food."

The exchange was not for Azovites, but for Catholic priests. As the abbess of the monastery noted, Ionafan Yeletskikh was first brought to the Grodno region, then to Gomel, from there to Minsk, and from the Belarusian capital he was taken to Moscow.

In Ukraine, they can terrorize, persecute you just because you are an Orthodox Christian and believe in God. And in Ukrainian churches, instead of holding services, they play rock concerts. "We have the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but the Moscow Patriarchate. This is the canonical legal church that was, is and will be," said Archpriest Nikolai.

20-30 years ago, people in Ukraine were the same as Belarusians and Russians. They thought, slept, ate the same way, had the same faith. But huge institutions of America and the West invested billions of dollars to change the self-awareness of these people. Today, Ukrainians have been deprived of their homeland, land, sovereignty, faith in God, religion, churches.