Chudnitsa: How words of one man can deprive the community of their right to pray, cause infarction and revolt the entire village

We have written time and again how civil servants who, under the Constitution of Ukraine, are supposed to stay apart from religious issues, turn into outraged leaders of inter-faith disputes. Currently in sight is a UOC religious community of Chudnitsa village, Goshcha district, which was deprived of a right to freely pray in their church by one of the local deputies – Boris Petrovich Sholodko.

While in other parishes of Rovno diocese church-related conflicts got dramatically exacerbated in the aftermath of tumultuous events of 2014, religious disputes in Chudnitsa village have been carried on since 1991. According to archive documents, it was the time when activists popped up in the village who registered a new community – Ukrainian Autocephalous Church – and held a referendum on “defining a church community”. It’s a matter of guesswork what the organizers were hoping for: the referendum protocol points to as many as five persons willing to change jurisdiction. After the astounding fiasco of autocephaly proponents it seemed to be quiet again in the village, true though, in several months a new religious community of the UOC KP turned up there.

According to protopriest Ivan Yaroshchuk, senior priest of Saint Paraskeva church in vlg. Chudnitsa, there was no mess at the parish until 2014, people used to go to the church as usual, prayed and led peaceful coexistence as Christians and fellow villagers:

– The situation took a new turn at the end of 2014. At that time the village church was run by protopriest Igor Matsiuk. All of a sudden idle rumors began to spread that the priest did not pray for Ukrainian soldiers, called on to overthrow the current government. To put it in a nutshell, given the situation development around all UOC temples in the diocese, I understand it is the most common method of manipulating with people’s minds used by the Kiev Patriarchate. In order to achieve their goals, the UOC-KP priests have no scruples about telling flagrant lies.

Apparently, having once failed a jurisdiction change, contemporary Chudnitsa raiders seized churches “on the hop”, no longer following any legal guidelines.

– The raiding initiator is Boris Sholodko, who managed within a week to twist young men in Chudnitsa village round his finger, spinning the yarns about ‘Moscow hand and Kremlin trace’ and on Sunday of 1 March 2015, grabbed our church, having enlisted the police support of Goshcha District Department. The latter did a big favor to the Kiev Patriarchate adherents by pushing back our believers, making a free corridor for schismatics, who finally set up an angle grinder and cut off the church locks,” shares her memories Oksana Peredniakova, resident of vlg. Chudnitsa and UOC parishioner.

By the villagers’ accounts, nobody in the village expected that the church would be grabbed out of the blue, within one day, and the police that arrived allegedly to settle the conflict, would not prevent such wrongdoing.

– There are 540 residents of the village, among whom only one third attended the church every Sunday. If the adherents of the Kiev Patriarchate organized a referendum again, they would be defeated like it was in 1991. Therefore, they broke into the church like thieves. Yet one thing is to grab a temple, another is to maintain it. At Easter over 200 people came to the house where we have worship services at present against their 100 at maximum. Every Saturday Boris Sholodko drives around the village, makes villagers go to the church service and orders parishioners from neighboring Voskodavy village.

Actually, a fifty-year-old woman like nobody else could feel all “love, Christian humbleness and benevolence” of the Mister who was striving so much to pray in the Filaret-founded church. During the elections to local self-government bodies Maria Litvinenko was a key opponent of Boris Sholodko. Knowing that, the man decided to remove the rival in the same predatory way as he had earlier grabbed the church – using gossip, phone intimidations, and obscene language.

– He stormed into the yard, jerked to fight, fired horrible words at me and threatened with massacre in case I become a deputy”, recalls Maria Litvinenko.

After this visit the woman had a heart attack and she was taken to hospital. The neighbors who personally witnessed an inadequate behavior of Mr. Sholodko on that day, told Maria Petrovna to sue him; however, she refused to do it relying only on God’s justice.

But the aggressive behavior of the Kiev Patriarchate’s faithful Boris Sholodko was not over at this point: at the court hearing of the ownership right to the church house he reaffirmed it was an act of revenge to all those who precluded changing of the jurisdiction back in 1991.

– Chudnitsa church might belong to the UOC MP only in 2037, i.e. in 21 years. This is the time frame during which true Ukrainian patriots were not able to pray in their Church they wanted to build in 1991, renders Boris Sholodko’s speech word-for-word human rights activist of Rovno diocese Yekaterina Ivaniuk and remarks, I cannot say for sure that even after being brought justice, Mr. Sholodko would stop his overt stigmatization of the UOC faithful in Chudnitsa vllage. He feels too relaxed taking advantage of his being elected as a deputy to Goshcha district state administration by his fellow villagers who had confidence in him. In fact, he is an ill-at-ease person. He even tried to bully at me when he met me in Goshcha town.

After ruling the decision by the Commercial Court on 18 October 2016, which overturned the decision of the state registrar on registration of the ownership right of the newly established community of the Kiev Patriarchate to the church house, the UOC believers anticipate new clashes. They say the notorious deputy continues to utter threats to deprive the UOC faithful of the house accommodated temporarily as a church. For this reason the UOC religious community of Chudnitsa village turns to everybody, who cares about their destiny, with requests for prayers and moral support. Besides, the believers appeal to local bodies of self-government to interfere and stop assaults of Boris Sholodko.