Hryshchuk compared OCU clerics seizing UOC churches to TCC employees
An OCU cleric complained that the state shifts responsibility for conflicts during the seizure of UOC churches onto OCU clergy, providing no protection whatsoever.
OCU “priest” Hryshchuk commented on the attack by Lviv residents on TCC employees on July 8, 2026, and drew a parallel with the situation in which he and his colleagues risk their health when fighting against UOC communities. He wrote about this on Facebook.
According to Hryshchuk, the state is waging its “struggle” against the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) through the hands of OCU clerics: instead of a systemic legislative ban, the authorities rely on employees of Dumenko’s organization. “You cross over, take all the fire, the conflicts and the legal hell upon yourselves, while we’ll wait” – this is how the author describes the state’s position.
“We are ‘lightning rods.’ When a conflict arises, the state does not act as a guarantor of the law – it merely states the fact: ‘well, you have a conflict there, sort it out yourselves.’ If it worked out – great, well done, it’s our victory. If it didn’t – well, that means ‘you’ (the OCU) failed to reach an agreement,” Hryshchuk complains.
According to him, “this is very similar to the situation with the TCC: when the system shifts its responsibility onto the executors, it automatically makes them the scapegoats.”
Hryshchuk believes that an OCU cleric who “transfers” a UOC church is essentially the same as a TCC officer. Both perform important work, yet both lack adequate state support: “The priest on the ground is that very ‘executor’ who must resolve a state matter on his own, absorbing all the blows himself.”
“We, the priests and faithful of the OCU, have taken this burden upon ourselves, because it is our duty before God and Ukraine. But is the state apparatus, headed by the President, ready to lend a shoulder, rather than merely making declarations and waiting for results?” Hryshchuk asks.
As the UOJ reported, according to Hryshchuk, if the UOC hands over its church voluntarily, one can do without angle grinders.
