The Ukrainian clergy were tried the Easter service was too crowded

Ukraine is going through poslepechatnye Church-care scandal – the national police for violation of quarantine opened against religious organizations 14 criminal cases. Affiliation of churches is not disclosed, but the most notable “flagship” violations are so well known – the Pochaev Lavra of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in Ternopil region and the same Holy assumption monastery Svyatogorsk in Donetsk.

the Plot of Affairs is simple – the Laurels was conducted online broadcast of Easter service, so that the priests for the police documented themselves. Svyatogorsk Lavra of the camera showed a dense crowd of three hundred, who were without masks. In Pochaev camera placed thinner: more on the iconostasis, but local police still recorded violations personally.

Laurel in Ukraine, only three, but the main – Kiev-Pechersk – closed on quarantine, there to Sunday COVID-19 has infected more than half of the inhabitants, headed by Metropolitan Pavel. The people on the eve of Easter scares Vladimir Zelensky, the President of Ukraine stated that in case of congestion of people in churches the number of infected COVID-19 can reach 10% of the population.

“the Abbot of Svyatogorsk Lavra Metropolitan Arseny is our Church, “President Lukashenko,” he, too, without denying the existence of the virus, completely denies the quarantine!” – says “MK” priest of one of the temples in the Donetsk region. “MK” was able to talk to the two priests, officials on both sides of the front line, but belonging to the same diocese. Metropolitan of Donetsk and Mariupol Hilarion, the blessings of the priests to talk with the press did not give too politically difficult situation in the Donbas for the existence of the Church in war. So we promised even the city, where he served as the Easter service the priest from the territory controlled by Ukraine, not to mention.

“you see, we have a week before the situation escalate and the police and the security service, and part of the city government, but to close the Church a legitimate reason had not, – says the priest. – I was ready for anything: and the service on the street and wait for the screen to deploy outside the Church to broadcast the service thought. In the end, I in the temple was the whole of Easter night, and there was a time when people were going up to 15, which is of course a violation, but not great. We all acted as Pochaiv Lavra, Metropolitan spoke strictly on the rampage to shove, quietly serving the service, fulfilling all the sanitary norms. I, too, about this virus and know are not so much infected, how become a source of infection for members. And such a service outright as in Svyatogorsk all surprised, everything was done very pointedly”.

Easter this year in the Donbas and the truth is defiantly unusual. First, the Metropolitan of Donetsk and Mariupolsiy Hilarion traditionally respected, immunity and virtually “green street” on the line of contact on major holidays managed to serve one day in Donetsk and Mariupol. Now the ban on travel via PPC Donbass iron for all without exception. Secondly, on Saturday in Donetsk, the local authorities firmly marked its position, a curfew on Easter night for the first time in the war will not be cancelled! The question of the multitude on the services in the open churches in the territories controlled by the DPR was dropped by itself. The priests decided that question is simply – they came to the temple in the evening and stayed there until morning.

third, in 2020 for the first time in these days announced additional usually strictly observed by the Easter truce – periodic battles go across the line of contact without a break for religious holidays, with in killed and wounded. And fourthly, on the territory controlled by Ukraine, there is train and bus service between cities, which has drastically reduced the number get to the monasteries. Three hundred people to the Holy Dormition Svyatogorsk Lavra by the standards of previous years – just a trifle. By the standards of 2020 service in Svyatogorsk – the biggest in Ukraine! Will it lead to the outbreak COVID-19 at least in the North of the Donetsk region? Epidemiologists believe that it can be studied only after two weeks after such a “potential intrusion of large

“Easter, she feeds the whole year! sadly, says “MK” Donetsk priest. – Income from this I was planning on heating to restructure, the doors of the temple to change something else to correct. Now the money for the salaries of the people at the temple are not enough. To parishioners for help it is time to turn.”

“We Kiev somehow equated to “community facilities” – closed houses of culture, cinemas, hairdressers and in the same row of the Church! says a priest from the Ukraine-controlled part of Donbas. – It turns out, grocery stores and pawnshops is needed, and the Church there. And the relationship with the Lord is vital, the soul also needs feeding and can prevent a person to come to God not! We need to nourish not only the body but the soul.”

Pawn shops in Ukraine and the truth in quarantine opened, causing a mountain of jokes. To the rapid rise in state ladder network of the Lombards belonged to the third man in Ukraine, the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Dmitry Razumkova. Once in Parliament, this ancient business, he gave his wife, but pawnshops in quarantine, when you stop everything, denying even make coffee in Kiev stores, suddenly stood, and got a list of untouchables and not closing institutions. Unlike churches.