For what I love Ukrainian Orthodox religiosity – so much for such plots. So, the anonymous Telegram channel Churcher (aka “sewage”) on January 14, 2021 publishes information from “readers” (in uniform) that in the Buchach district of the Ternopil region (that is, deep in Galicia/Halychyna and far from Pochaev) – oh horror, they secretly build a temple of the UOC for the spiritual nourishment of the local “Lemkos”.
Like this: “Why don`t the Lemko peasants want to visit the Local Church?” (There is an OCU temple in the village, but why does the population mostly ignore it?). A particular danger to the case gives the fact that the Pochaev priests will patronize the church. Almost a month later, on February 14, the Ternopil newspaper “Za Zbruchem” reprinted the news with its commentary. In the article “Temple in Ternopil will be named after a Russian spy” the newspaper reports that the Lemkos settled in the village after the war, before that Poles and Jews lived there. The Poles were resettled to Poland while the “Vistula” operation; there is no need to inform the readers about the fate of the Jews.
The Orthodox Lemkos (in fact (like the Boyks and the Hutsuls), who are considered Ukrainians, but when it is necessary to emphasize their alienation from the Galicians, called by the tribal term), who came from Poland within the same operation, will now, according to the newspaper, be nourished by the parish of the Polish Orthodox Church. Moreover, the parish will be named in honor of the Lemko priest Maxim Gorlytsky, who was shot in 1914 in Austria-Hungary on suspicion of leaning towards Moscow and espionage for the Russian Empire. He still, such a rascal, before his death managed to shout out: “Let Rus live, that holy Orthodoxy!”, and for this he was recognized as a saint by the Polish Orthodox Church and the ROCOR.
And also, according to the newspaper, the head of the POC, according to the published documents, once collaborated with the KGB. You feel, they say, all the danger, citizens! A day later, the news hit the website of the Greek Catholic “Religious Information Service of Ukraine” (RISU), which began to disperse the sensation under a slightly schizophrenic title: “In the Ternopil region the UOC-MP builds a temple for the Polish Church.”
Meanwhile, potential spies in the village of Duliby maliciously refused to comply with the popular in the world media thesis that “the Russian Orthodox Church has lost Ukraine” and, apparently, still wanted to get to the service in the village hut, over which a dome and a cross appeared by their care. This is how the seventh year of the process of Ukraine’s integration into the European Union started.