OCU explains why beggars are driven away from St. Michael’s Cathedral
A cleric of Dumenko’s structure admitted that beggars are not tolerated at the OCU’s main monastery because of their “high incomes” and the desire not to damage the site’s image before foreign tourists.
Ruslan Usmedinsky, a 26-year-old cleric of the OCU, said in an interview on the stand-up comedian Dmytro Tiutiun’s show A Not-So-Serious Conversation that beggars who usually gather near St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv are driven away. According to him, this is because the monastery is a major tourist site that many visitors come to with dollars and euros.
Usmedinsky remarked ironically that these “poor unfortunate people” often earn more in a day than some Ukrainians do in a month. The OCU representative emphasized that they are “simply dispersed,” since their presence in such places is considered undesirable. At the same time, he did not specify how many foreign tourists have actually visited St. Michael’s in recent years while the war in Ukraine continues.
According to him, when they are offered help with food or assistance in finding work through certain “connections,” the beggars allegedly refuse. “They need nothing except money. Goodbye,” Usmedinsky concluded.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that the OCU had “allowed” parishioners to use a priest’s cassock for sexual role-playing.
