Ukrainian Nazis in Odessa attacked a priest of the Moscow Patriarchate
Ukrainian Nazis staged a provocation near the Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Odessa, reports the press service of the local diocese of the UOC.
“On the evening of August 5, 2018, in Odessa, a group of right-wing radicals attempted to commit another provocation against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This time, the attackers came to the church in honor of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God of the St. Andrew's Metochion, located in the very center of the city. The youths tried to write offensive inscriptions, having previously prepared a stencil and a can of spray paint for this, but were stopped by the parishioners of the church, who at that moment, together with their children - Sunday school pupils - returned from a bicycle trip around Odessa.
Believers, led by the rector of the temple, prevented the provocateurs, and the radicals inflicted bodily harm on the clergyman. And all this happened in front of the eyes of children and women, who were not afraid of the thugs waving their fists and shouting threats, but stood up to defend the church.
Let us emphasize once again that this bandit attack on a clergyman and believers with children did not take place anywhere, but right in the center of Odessa, at the peak of the holiday season, when tens of thousands of tourists came to us to relax in a hospitable and peaceful “pearl by the sea” .
We once again appeal to law enforcement agencies, and first of all to the police, with a legal demand to protect the constitutional rights of believers and to prevent this kind of provocation, which serves to destabilize the situation in our city, creating an atmosphere of hostility and hatred.
After this failed provocation of right-wing radicals, the police were called to the scene, whose officers recorded facts of illegal actions and took statements from the clergy and parishioners of the temple,” the statement says.
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