An Orthodox priest "stormed" the house of a Greek-Catholic pastor

On January 21, 2009, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate together with three dozen faithful swarmed into the yard of a Greek-Catholic priest in the village of Ivanivka, Odesa Region. Opposition was provoked by a funeral service for a dead woman, whose daughter appealed for help to the Greek-Catholic priest. According to the official information of the Odesa and Crimea Exarchate of the UGCC, the Orthodox priest, Volodymyr Ushchapivs’kyj, was indignant at the fact that the Greek-Catholics conducted a funeral service. Together with 30 of his supporters, he organized a «crusade» into the yard of the pastor of the Greek-Catholic Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Fr. Yuriy Kashuba. After they entered the yard, the Orthodox violently began to drag the wife of the UGCC priest out from the house onto the street, while Fr. Yuriy was on a pastoral visit to one of his parishioners. Thanks to the timely intervention of law enforcement authorities an escalation of the conflict was able to be avoided. The police workers have opened a criminal case about the priest of the UOC-MP and his parishioners violating public order.

Religious Administration of the Exarchate of Odesa and Crimea of the UGCC

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